Trouble With Thumb Drive

[BFM_Fuzzy]

Several days ago my thumb drive gave me some trouble. It has a little orange light on it that blinks/shines/etc. to tell me that it is plugged in/what it is doing. It was purchased a little over 4 years ago if memory serves. The brand is Corner Office.

I was moving files off of it when a pop up appeared saying there was an error in moving the files (can't remember what it said). The little orange light was out. I went to My Computer, selected the properties of the thumb drive, and it said it had 0 megabytes of space used and 0 megabytes of space available.

It took probably 8-10 attempts to move all the files off (it would last a little while, then cut out). Then afterwards it seemed to work just fine (I moved around 1.1 gigabytes of audio files on and then off again to test it, and didn't have any trouble).

Any idea what's going on? 

[MrMxyzptlk]

Try this first (one of two possibilities....):

Now that you've gotten everything off of it, it's a good time to "reset" the drive. (Because <techno-babble here>....)

The "usual" way to do that is to reformat it. (Which is why it's good to have it empty now.)

1) Insert flash drive and wait until it shows up. (Various ways, such as pop-up, tray icon, ....  If doesn't show up after a few minutes stop here and post so.)

2) Start -> "(My) Computer."

3) Find your USB drive in the list of drives in the Computer/My Computer menu. (The drive letter will vary based on your system configuration.  Hopefully you have no other USB disk devices active. This makes finding your removable drive easy....)

5) RIGHT-click on the USB drive shown, then select "Format..." from the pop-up.

6) Click the "Start" button in the "Format <Volume Label> <*:>" dialog box. Windows will complete the format and alert you when it is finished.

7) Close any remaining pop-up menus.

8 ) Try out the drive.



If you do not get improvement, then try this method:

1) Insert flash drive and wait until it shows up. (Various ways, such as pop-up, tray icon, ....  If doesn't show up after a few minutes stop here and post so.)

2) Start, then RIGHT-click "(My) Computer," and select "Manage".

3) Select "Device Manager" in the "Computer Management" window.

4) In the "Computer Management" (middle window), expand the "Disk drives" branch.

5) Find your USB drive in the list of drives in the middle pane of the "Computer Management" window. (The drive letter will vary based on your system configuration.  Hopefully you have no other USB disk devices active. This makes finding your removable drive easy....)

5) RIGHT-click on the USB drive shown, then select "Properties" from the pop-up.

6) Select the "Policies" tab, and enable "Better performance."

CAUTION: Doing so disables "safe/quick removal" which assures that
everything is fully/completely written/removed from the drive BEFORE notification!
This means that you MUST WAIT FOR THE "Safely Remove Hardware" notification
BEFORE removing your drive from any connection!

7) Right-click on the drive listing and choose "Format" from the pop-up menu. The Format Removable Disk dialog box should appear.

Click "Start" in the Format Removable Disk dialog box. Windows will complete the format and alert you when it is finished.

8 ) Close any remaining pop-up menus.

9) Try out the drive.

[BFM_Crimson]

And if neither of those work, it's 4 years old, so it's probably payed for itself by now. Time to invest in a new thumb drive

[MrMxyzptlk]

'Guess so! 

GL!

[BFM_Fuzzy]

Did the formatting according to the first method. I was able to move the original files on and then off again without incident. Don't really want to put anything important on it though. 

Now that you've gotten everything off of it, it's a good time to "reset" the drive. (Because <techno-babble here>....)

Would you mind giving me the "techno-babble"? I'd like to know the hows and whys of this.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Did the formatting according to the first method. I was able to move the original files on and then off again without incident. Don't really want to put anything important on it though. 

Now that you've gotten everything off of it, it's a good time to "reset" the drive. (Because <techno-babble here>....)

Would you mind giving me the "techno-babble"? I'd like to know the hows and whys of this.

Check your PMs....