USB flash drive issues.

S

Shine9585

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Hi all,
I'm having some trouble with a usb 2.0 flash drive.

I switch it between windows and Mac machines (XP/Vista, and OSX 10.5.8),
it's been fine between all. Until one day it failed to disconnect from the XP computer.

When I plugged it into the Mac it was not recognized, and now is also not recognizable by any of the computers. Although the light on the drive itself does light up though, and blink.
It doesn't appear in on the desktop or in disk utility on the mac.

I realize that lots of that was about Windows, but I'm just giving all the information I have, and any help for use with Mac or Windows would be much appreciated.

In Vista it appears in 'My Computer', but when clicked it asks for a disk to be inserted.
Also, when I right click on 'Computer' (in the start menu) and select 'manage' the drive is there, but is highlighted black rather than blue, and it says 'no media'.
I read that changing the drive letter may help, so i did it, and now it says it is 'online' and in properties it says the file type is 'master boot record'. So it seems to have some effect.

Finally, I'm not interested in saving the drive, I just need the data from it. which I am sure is there just inaccessible.

Thanks in advance.

Stuart
 
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What do you mean 'fail to disconnect'? Did you remove it without ejecting or dragging to Trash? When connected does it appear in Disk Utility? If not sounds like you have a fried drive ~ it does happen.
 
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I've got the same problem but from a reverse perspective. I was converting some vids using friends macbook pro and hadn't noticed that the power connection had come unplugged. It shutdown and after connecting power, waiting approx 15 minute, powered up, then when looking for the PNY 64 gig usb memory stick, poof it was gone. I looked for it using finder, gave disk utility a peek, no joy. I powered the mac book down, removed usb and tried it in My mack book air, same results, then tried it in XP based work laptop and had same results as original poster. It shows as "Removable Disk (E:)" and then when try to click on it in xp, asks "Please insert a disk into drive E:." Frustrating, I am certain of an nearly identical incident with a seemingly fried memstick with a document control guy here at work that mention it occurred after a power down from battery depleted. Is there a more aggressive way to look for the usb device on a mac OSX Lion (10.7.4) ?
 

chscag

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A 64 GB flash drive is an expensive drive to have become corrupt. But that's what happens when accidents occur like the power going off or removing the drive without proper ejection. You can try using Disk Manager from Windows XP to see if you can format the flash drive and get it working that way. If that doesn't work, the drive might not be repairable.

If you can't repair it, check to see if it's still covered under warranty. It's possible you may be able to return it with a RMA and get sent a new one in its place. Of course the data on it will be lost.
 
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Of course the data on it will be lost.
..or recovered by whatever goon gets the drive, and then used for whatever...

I'd never consider returning media under warranty, unless the contents were fully and adequately encrypted before it died.
 

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