Is this Flash Drive dead?

[thrash-boy]

my brother has this seriously piece of crap flash drive that is really pissing me off.

 

Its a couple of years old and is only a crappy brand (Office One, i dont think they made it probably made in china and branded that).

 

Im running Win XP

 

 

 

Anyway he wants gta3 put on it today so i plug it in and plug in my 160gb WD passport. I start to copy it over and it works great for about 1 minute then stops with some error. I try several times with the same error just 30 seconds in each time.

 

While ive got it plugged in i noticed it also randomly disappears from my computer and a few seconds later it reapears, then the window asking me what to do comes up.

 

I then decide to try and convert it to ntfs because its in the FAT file system. the first thing i try is "convert G: /fs:ntfs" in command prompt but it says i need to run chkdsk /f. I do that (with no errors found btw) and try converting again. It starts converting but eventually fails saying something i cant remember now. Now i have this popup in the bottom right that keeps saying windows failed to write G:/???.msc or something like that every minute or so and that the data has been lost.

 

Anyway i right click it in my computer and select format. After about 6 attempts it finally works and i format it to FAT32 successfully. By this stage i couldn't care less about any data he has on it, not that there was anything important anyway.

 

I then convert it to NTFS in command prompt successfully.

 

 

 

I then try again to copy GTA3 over, and it again fails a small way in with the error:

 

Cannot copy setup: the parameter is incorrect

 

 

 

It also randomly switches from the volume label in my computer (eg 'Bobs FD' not that thats the real label) to 'Removable Disk'. When it is removable disk you cant access it (with error "Please insert a disk into drive G:").

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds to me like the Chinese piece of crap has finally died. The paint is wearing off so its had good use for the cheapest 2gb flash drive that was in the store at the time.

 

What are your thoughts? is it just software related (ie reparable) or is the hardware dead (ie chuck it and buy another)?

[DaN]

Is it an old drive?

 

 

 

Flash drives only have a limited number of write cycles available and don't take long to reach their end of life, depending what you do with them. If it happens to be a cheaply made bit of crap then it will probably die allot quicker than one that is made with half decent quality.

 

 

 

Is there any irreplaceable information on the disk? If not then it probably isn't worth fixing and better to buy a new one.

[Furah]

If you are copying it from the portable harddrive, why not put that into his computer and copy it?

[thrash-boy]

thanks for the help guys

 

 

 

If you are copying it from the portable harddrive, why not put that into his computer and copy it?

 

yes thats what ill end up doing now. he just wanted it on the flash drive so he could use it on any computer.