[Brennan C.]

Hey, gang,

I got a fancy new 2GB USB stick from work a few weeks ago. When I plugged it in to my computer at work, it was fine. I didn't do anything with it again until last night when I tried to put some files on it at home. I plugged it in, the light on it lit up, Windows made the "New Hardware Found" sound, and then it showed up in My Computer. When I went to open it, however, and it asked me to "insert a disk into Removable Disk (F:)". From past experience I know that changing the drive letter assigned to the stick sometimes solves this problem, so I went into Disk Management changed it to (Q:) with no change in outcome.

So, I took it back to work and tried it in the computer, there; no dice. I had the exact same problem. So, when I got home tonight I plugged it in, went into the Device Manager, and tried updating the driver software, disabling and enabling the device, and finally uninstalling it and then telling Device Manager to "search for hardware changes". That last attempt reset the drive letter to (F:), but the problem wasn't solved.

Our computers at work run Windows XP Service Pack 3 and I'm running Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2 at home.

Does anybody have any idea what could cause something like this to happen, or what I can do to reverse it?

Thanks,

- Brennan

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This can be caused by a bad sector on the flash drive, or a corrupt file. It can also be caused by not "safely remove hardware" in windows XP. It could be as simple as pulling the drive out of the usb while windows is trying to index the files on it. On your Vista computer, after going to My Computer, Right click the Removable drive, Go to Properties >Tools. Run Error Checking and Scan for errors and fix them. The files that are corrupt or in bad sectors already will not work but they will be marked as bad sectors, or bad files deleted, and the drive should start working without the error messages.

SRX660

[SRX660]

This can be caused by a bad sector on the flash drive, or a corrupt file. It can also be caused by not "safely remove hardware" in windows XP. It could be as simple as pulling the drive out of the usb while windows is trying to index the files on it. On your Vista computer, after going to My Computer, Right click the Removable drive, Go to Properties >Tools. Run Error Checking and Scan for errors and fix them. The files that are corrupt or in bad sectors already will not work but they will be marked as bad sectors, or bad files deleted, and the drive should start working without the error messages.

SRX660

[Brennan C.]

Result:

The properties window doesn't even indicate that there's any space on the disk:


I'm not worried about the files; it's just a couple of training videos that I can get off of the Sharepoint at work if I need 'em. It'd be a shame to lose this stick, though, which is 4x the capacity of the only one I have. :-P

[SRX660]

Can you go into administrative tools, computer management, disk management and see what it says about the flash drive there? This sounds like you have lost the format on the drive.

If you can see the drive in disk management, try right clicking the removable drive and select "format the drive". Then scan and fixes all errors so all the bad sectors are fixed and the drive has become new. If this does not work take the drive back to where you bought it and see if they will replace it. Otherwise it is useless and time to throw it away.

SRX660

[Brennan C.]

Looks like it's time to whip this dumb stick, then:

Drive (F:) only shows up on that bottom list when the stick is plugged in, but I have no option to Format it. I kinda thought it would come down to throwing it out, but I just wanted to be sure before I did that.

Thanks for your help! :-D

[naturelove691]

Is there no way to salvage the data on the disk? I have the same problem but unfortunately I desperately need the data

 

thanks all!

[CompCav]

naturelove691,

 

Please start your own topic with your issue and someone will help you.