Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

high-speed USB flash drives...


lost_soul

Recommended Posts

Anybody got experience with these? How do they perform? I'm not expecting SATA 6Gb/s performance, but most standard flash/thumbdrives are brutally slow. I use them for moving OS images around and I treat them like tiny hard drives. I guess you're really not supposed to do this, because they will wear out faster by writing lots of multi-gigabyte images to them constantly. I have yet to destroy a USB flash drive though.

  • Like 1

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 years later...

On this topic, I have a problem with a particular USB flash drive.

One time I tried to print some files from it at an office but it gave me complete hieroglyphs. The notification bar in Win 10 suggested to repair and restore it. I clicked ok, and then it removed all files with the exception of 2 folders which were unopenable and had a few Kilobytes on them.

After trying to format the drive and copy the needed files just for experimentation purposes for multiple times I ended up with similar results.

While troubleshooting and trying to format it again, right now I'm stuck with the USB flash drive in write protection mode. I tried all the guides on the internet to remove the write protection mode and it is stuck. There is no physical switch.

Current Read-only state is locked to Yes in Command Prompt when using attributes disk command in diskpart settings. Attempts to reset it failed. Still stuck to Yes.

Changed the Write Protection Registry Entry in Registry Editor to 0. No dice.

The problem with Write protection appeared when I changed the name of the device from my computer. Can this be the problem? I try to restore everything to default while formatting. The first error is "windows was unable to complete the format". Next time I try it it gives me that it's in write protection mode.

Othertimes it doesn't even see the stick, but when that happens I remove and reinsert it a couple of times and the PC sees it again.

I have 3 theories on what is the culprit:

a) excessive cold outside while I was carrying the USB flash drive;

b) physical damage to the USB flash drive that might have been caused by it falling down somewhere (though I carry it in a small bag together with my keys when travelling, is it really that sensitive?);

c) incorrectly removed the USB flash drive without using the safety eject function and forgot that I did.

 

Is the USB flash drive dead? Do I have any hope of using it or should I stop giving myself brain cancer? I thought USB's were supposed to be more reliable than Compact Disks. First time ever I had this problem with any USB stick. All other USB flash drive work on this and other computers as I have tried so the problem is definitely something related with the stick.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/27/2020 at 5:06 AM, Swiggy said:

USBs should be more reliable than CDs, and certainly floppies. I haven't had many dead USB flash drives but they can certainly happen.

Back in the day (think XP era), Windows didn't sync after each write which meant that if you didn't use the safely eject function in Windows, you could run the risk of corruption for anything written to the drive while it was plugged in. From I think Vista onwards, Windows would disable write caching for USB drives which alleviated this problem, but kept the safely remove feature since it has another benefit - it marks the drive as cleanly unmounted. If a drive is inserted which wasn't cleanly unmounted by using safely remove, that popup to scan will appear.

If the drive is so buggered it can't properly write to it anymore, that flag might never be set and hence you'll always have the popup, plus of course the garbage files. I'd ditch the USB flash drive altogether - if it's the only one having troubles then it's specific to the drive itself and cannot be trusted anymore.

Thanks a lot for the answer.

I agree, it's probably easier to get a new USB.

I did jerk around with this one though and figured that I had to type to remove readonly in CMD and then safely remove the drive and then put it back in for the readonly to be cleared. Then it is finally cleared of write protection! When doing a check disk for errors it tells me that the USB has no errors.

However whenever trying to do something more complex in CMD like "clean" or "create partition primary" it gives me "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.
See the System Event Log for more information."

Basically it always resets back to read only write protection enabled whenever I try to do something useful to it. But it also resets readonly to enabled when checking disk for errors.

Will try to bring it back like Frankenstein back to life. I must've done something to it because it worked reliably since summer until recently. Maybe messing with the USB name did something.

Edited by Anderson

"I really perceive that vanity about which most men merely prate — the vanity of the human or temporal life. I live continually in a reverie of the future. I have no faith in human perfectibility. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active — not more happy — nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago. The result will never vary — and to suppose that it will, is to suppose that the foregone man has lived in vain — that the foregone time is but the rudiment of the future — that the myriads who have perished have not been upon equal footing with ourselves — nor are we with our posterity. I cannot agree to lose sight of man the individual, in man the mass."...

- 2 July 1844 letter to James Russell Lowell from Edgar Allan Poe.

badge?user=andarson

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Ansome

      Finally got my PC back from the shop after my SSD got corrupted a week ago and damaged my motherboard. Scary stuff, but thank goodness it happened right after two months of FM development instead of wiping all my work before I could release it. New SSD, repaired Motherboard and BIOS, and we're ready to start working on my second FM with some added version control in the cloud just to be safe!
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer  »  DeTeEff

      I've updated the articles for your FMs and your author category at the wiki. Your newer nickname (DeTeEff) now comes first, and the one in parentheses is your older nickname (Fieldmedic). Just to avoid confusing people who played your FMs years ago and remember your older nickname. I've added a wiki article for your latest FM, Who Watches the Watcher?, as part of my current updating efforts. Unless I overlooked something, you have five different FMs so far.
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...