Gaming Any ideas for getting a USB drive working?

[SifJar]

A few years ago I got a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4GB USB flash drive (this: click, only mine was white). It stopped working after a couple of months, and after a bit of back and forth between me and SanDisk, resulting in them wanting me to pay IIRC more than the drive cost to ship it to them, for them to ship me a replacement, and me deciding to buy a cheaper, Play.com drive instead.

A little while later, I managed to get the drive to start working again by sticking it in the computer (which caused any computer I plugged it into to slow down a lot, and Windows Explorer would simply crash), and formatting it via the Command Prompt. Then it all worked fine for a little while, but then stopped again. This time, I couldn't fix it by formatting, because it didn't register at all as being connected, which it had the last time. The light doesn't even come on. I have tried numerous things to get it to work, but gave up, because I already had my replacement.

But now I want to use it for a Chrome OS live USB drive, so I want it to work again. So far I have tried formatting it command prompt, checking under diskmgmt.msc, using Easeus Partition Recovery Wizard and Easeus Disk Partition Master Home Edition. I am out of ideas, any one any suggestions for getting this thing to work? I don't know if its a hardware issue, although I guess it could be, considering the light doesn't come on....

 

[Originality]

It does sound like a hardware issue. I've seen many Cruzer Micros die over the years, most commonly because someone wiggled them too much or put too much pressure on top of them. Either of these causes one of the 4 main pin/contact type things (I forget the exact word for it) to break its solder, making it difficult to get it working again (even if you resolder it).

Your best bet is probably getting a new one.

 

[SifJar]

It does sound like a hardware issue. I've seen many Cruzer Micros die over the years, most commonly because someone wiggled them too much or put too much pressure on top of them. Either of these causes one of the 4 main pin/contact type things (I forget the exact word for it) to break its solder, making it difficult to get it working again (even if you resolder it).

Your best bet is probably getting a new one.

Anyway I can check if this solder is broken (easily)? e.g. any pics online comparing a broken and non broken one, so I can see which mine is? (BTW, the casing is removed, because when it broke, I stuck another old, pathetically small drive in it, so I can easily look at the board)

EDIT: Do you mean these things:

(ignore the text, it was the first image I saw). If so, all four appear to be still connected...

 

[Originality]

The last one I dealt with, the top pin was broken (half a millimeter raised from the PCB - clearly broken solder). In testing, if I pressed down at a certain point, I could get it working again, although when I tried to solder it back, it didn't work. In the end I had to scrap it.

Of course, there could be something else wrong with it. I'm just going by the most common problem with the drive.

 

[SifJar]

Well, none of those pins are broken on mine. I did find a YouTube video here: http://viivi.net/view.php?video=djyNUK0r7J...shDrivePros.com that claims to allow data recovery, but I don't think there were any important files on it (and if there were, they aren't important any more

), and it doesn't claim to fix the drive, simply allows recovery of data. I have no real idea with electrical stuff, but when it says to short the resistor, could you just put solder over it, so the current goes through the solder instead of the resistor, and then it would work permanently? I'm assuming however this isn't a bad idea, or SanDisk wouldn't have put the capacitor and resistor there in the first place, as what I suggest basically negates them both...

 

[Originality]

Unfortunately I know little about electronics so I'm not the one to ask about shorting parts of the circuit. All I know is how to poke things and see if it makes things work, and solder things when necessary.

 

[SixtySixHundred]

From what you were saying about how the flash drive makes Windows behave, I'd say it was corrupted. I have a few flash drives that I've messed up and they all make my PC boot very slowly.

It also recently happened to an 8GB SDHC card, it worked, then went funny, then I formatted it with CMD, it worked again for a week and then died completely. I think you may need to just get a new flash drive.

 

[SifJar]

From what you were saying about how the flash drive makes Windows behave, I'd say it was corrupted. I have a few flash drives that I've messed up and they all make my PC boot very slowly.

It also recently happened to an 8GB SDHC card, it worked, then went funny, then I formatted it with CMD, it worked again for a week and then died completely. I think you may need to just get a new flash drive.

I already did, I just wanted to resurrect this one so I could have two

But your experience with that SD card sounds EXACTLY like mine. So yeah, I guess its probably dead for good.