corny
maizetastic
Senior member
Posts: 980
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« on: November 20, 2009, 04:38:23 PM » |
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Oh, I'm so glad this forum is here.
I use a flash drive to transport my PowerPoints, lecture notes, etc. back and forth between my home computer (Mac) and the various office and classroom computers (PC) I use on campus. Earlier this week, I plugged it into a classroom computer and got an error message: "USB device not recognized." Removed it, replaced it, same problem. I tried it in the other computer in the room and it worked fine. Ok.
This morning, when I plugged it in at home, it just didn't show up on my computer at all. Removed it, replaced it, and it showed up. Ok.
Then I got to campus, where I got the same "not recognized" error message on three different computers. No teaching notes for corny today!
What is going on? Is it possible I've damaged it somehow? Do I need to replace it? The fact that it's causing trouble on a bunch of different computers makes me think it's the drive's fault, not a computer glitch. Does anyone have any advice?
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"Skeptical Muskrat thinks your argument needs work."
E: (staring at his phone) "Well? Shall we go?" A: (also staring at his phone) "Yes, let's go." Only their thumbs move. |
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southerntransplant
Overcaffeinated and punchy
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 7,336
The negotiated indirect cost of this post is 46.5%
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« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2009, 05:55:41 PM » |
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Flash drives can go bad. I don't think going from Mac to PC has anything to do with it - I plug mine between PC and Linux and it gets read no problem. A flash drive magnetizes and remagnetizes a surface over and over with information, which over a long term is deleterious to its life.
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"I tried to walk into a Target, but I missed. I think the entrance to Target should have people splattered all around" - Mitch Hedberg
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cranefly
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« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2009, 06:20:07 PM » |
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Going from Mac to PC without properly ejecting the drive will do this. The files can become corrupt.
Try re-formatting the drive.
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Oh yeah--Professor Sparkle Pony. "Follow your dreams, young genius, and you will meet with success!" Students eat that up.
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tee_bee
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« Reply #3 on: November 20, 2009, 06:30:23 PM » |
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Is this an older or newer flash drive? Flash drives are good for only so many read/write cycles. I think reformatting is a good idea, but any time my flash drives go haywire, I just get another--they're dirt cheap compared with what they used to be (I have a lot of freebie 1 GB drives from various conferences).
If you have internet access on all computers you use, you might just try uploading files to Google Documents, Office Live, Dropbox or (one of my favorite) 4shared. I gave up on flash drives because my computers take forever to recognize them, they are really slow, and many of the computers on our campus are configured to reject any USB device that's not already on the system (keyboard and mouse).
Even emailing files to yourself (in Hotmail or gmail) is a good solution.
(Can you believe we can buy a 1 GB flash drive for far less than what 10 100MB zip disks used to cost)
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corny
maizetastic
Senior member
Posts: 980
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« Reply #4 on: November 20, 2009, 07:55:27 PM » |
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Thanks, everybody. I do eject it each time, and it's only a year old or so, but I move it from one computer to another several times a day, so perhaps it's just getting worn out. I'll see if reformatting helps and otherwise just get a new one, I guess.
tee_bee, I used to email all my files to myself or upload them somewhere, but it takes the school computers even longer to get Firefox or IE running than it takes them to recognize the drive - plus PowerPoint files are huge and take forever to upload from home with my apparently inadequate DSL connection. So in general the flash drive has been much more convenient. Prior to this week, at least.
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"Skeptical Muskrat thinks your argument needs work."
E: (staring at his phone) "Well? Shall we go?" A: (also staring at his phone) "Yes, let's go." Only their thumbs move. |
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tee_bee
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« Reply #5 on: November 20, 2009, 08:24:48 PM » |
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Agreed. My reasonably new and fast computer will launch IE fairly quickly, but Firefox takes forever, which is why I use Google's Chrome browser (digression).
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der_gadfly
SSOB-hatin', snarklet-writin'
Distinguished Senior Member
Posts: 1,844
oy vey
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« Reply #6 on: November 22, 2009, 10:35:22 AM » |
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I think that Mr. Murphy has visited all users of these little devices at least time or other.
I make a backup of all REALLY critical ones, usually on a new-ish flash drive. If I am transporting files for my lectures, and there is time, I burn a CD: these too are pretty cheap.
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(and I bow before der_gadfly) Don't forget, that cat hair can come in handy as a good luck charm! |
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temporaryname
Junior faculty,
Senior member
Posts: 917
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« Reply #7 on: November 22, 2009, 11:29:16 PM » |
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One bit of advice I got once for frequently-used flash drives was to buy the shortest USB cable I could find, attach that to the end of my USB drive, and insert that in the USB port. It won't do anything against running up against the read/write cycle limit on a flash drive, but it does help guard against breakage due to fatigue stress from repeated pushing in and pulling out the drive.
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