Whats wrong with this Flash Drive?

B

byteninja2

banned
I have a PNY 32 GB Flash drive, and its act6ing up. And I would hate for this to be broken as it cost $50. What it does, on the 2 PCs I tried it with, W7 says "Windows must format the Disk before you can use it" so I click format, and it says that it can not format the disk. So whats up?
 
Which file system are trying to format it in? Use NTFS and use the default allocation size when trying to format.
 
I don't ever use NTFS on my flashkeys. Generally it is either EXT4, ZFS, or FAT32. Try FAT32 and see if that will format. Do not do a quick format, do a full format with default allocation size.
 
Yeah could try FAT32. Trouble I find with FAT32 though is file size limitations - only allows files up to 4GB or so in size I believe, might be wrong though.
 
It will only allow files up to 4GB. But if I need bigger, I have EXT4 and ZFS. Besides, not many people will actually transfer large files on flashkey.
 
Maybe. I will also note I have never had a flash drive last over 6 months, not even close to forever. This one, 3 months, used 6 times.
 
Not sure what your problem is with drives going bad. I've had flash drives last me a few years. But you may have an issue with your system if you keep breaking them. Possible overpower on the usb ports.
 
byteninja2 said:
Not good. Not even my $50 flash drive. This is my 5th flash drive in 2 years that has failed on me.
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Flash drive for 50$? that is costly even for 32GB, here I get it for 20$.
Flash drives do get problems like you mentioned, but not really always, you need a good brands like sandisk. My first ever flash drive brought back in 2006-7 still works fine.
 
Usually my drives last for years too, not sure what you're doing to them if they're not even lasting you a year. You looking after them properly? You're not damaging them are you?
 
Like, install Ubuntu, put it on a flash drive, run it, take it off, do it one more time with another os, after that add a few files to transfer, and put it away. That's what I do usally.
 
Could be damaging the drive due to the number of reads and writes it's doing. Not sure, but probably not a great idea to run an OS off a pendrive.
 
byteninja2 said:
Like, install Ubuntu, put it on a flash drive, run it, take it off, do it one more time with another os, after that add a few files to transfer, and put it away. That's what I do usally.
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So you made the drive bootable? That is the reason, if you make your flash drive bootable then you can't do file transfers after it. You must have played around with the bootloader.
 
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