Can a pen drive be erased by a mobile phone?

[Phantom1983]

As an aid to my Final Year Project at university I was given a 256MB pen drive by the School of Engineering. It was kept on my car keys since I bought it, 3 months ago, in the same pocket as my mobile phone.

A coupe of days ago I plugged the drive in and the PC asked me to format it. After several minutes of swearing and throwing cutlery, I began to wonder why it had corrupted...

Have any of you heard of mobile phone signal-seeking causing damage to pen drives? If this turns out to be grasping at straws I'll have to conclude that my uni gave me a crap pen drive.

Many thanks,

M.

 

[Looney]

You're in your final year in Engineering, and you have to ask us this?

 

[Phantom1983]

MECHANICAL engineering, I should have added!

 

[Looney]

Well, since cellphones just operates on normal radio waves, i would say that it's unlikely it caused that. More than likely it's just a coincidence, and you just got a bad drive.

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: Looney
You're in your final year in Engineering, and you have to ask us this?

 

[Looney]

What kind of drive was it anyways? People put these things through washers and dryers and they often come out working (or so they claim)

 

[Phantom1983]

Originally posted by: Looney
What kind of drive was it anyways? People put these things through washers and dryers and they often come out working (or so they claim)

They got it from ebuyer, who are outstanding IMO, for £12 (about $20.50 these days). I'll admit that this is inordinately cheap for a 256, but projects have limited budgets. Ah well...

 

[Mday]

no it cant.