Flash drive when connected getting ridiculously hot...

[Meractik]

Help help!!! i got an 8gb flash drive ive been using storing lots of stuff on with schoolwork, right now in the middle of doing coursework i tried to save my document it couldn't save then shortly after i kept getting a taskbar notification in windows 7 of USB devices not working properly...

I shut down the laptop and took out the USB drive only to touch the copper retractable end and find out that it was extremely hot and I dropped it. It was that hot... now anytime i plug the device into a different PC usb port it so far is not being recognized and it gets real hot within a couple seconds..

anyone ever have this happen to them? is this flash drive dead? anything I can do to get the data off it? it just stopped working all-of-a-sudden... except for maybe the fact that it has been taking a while lately to pop-up in My Computer after I plug it in, but I thought that was more because of the reading of the data... since its 8GB capacity and I only use about 1/4 of that...

 

[Jodell88]

Dropbox my friend.

 

[lxskllr]

Dropbox my friend.

Or SpiderOak

Sounds like the drive is failing. I wouldn't trust it for important data.

 

[Meractik]

ahhhh its not making that little sound when i plug it in now.... just getting real hot.. I need stuff on it!

 

[dighn]

yes I've seen this. took out the USB port too. both the computer and the flash drive were cheap pieces of crap so it's hard to say what shorted out...

does the port still work? if so then the drive is probably dead. if the port doesn't work, you could try the drive on another port (at the risk of burning that one out too if it's the drive)

 

[Meractik]

yes I've seen this. took out the USB port too. both the computer and the flash drive were cheap pieces of crap so it's hard to say what shorted out...

does the port still work? if so then the drive is probably dead. if the port doesn't work, you could try the drive on another port (at the risk of burning that one out too if it's the drive)

oh scary.... i don't want to ruin my usb ports too.... well so far this PC i just used another flash drive and its recognized and opens right away so I assume its this drive that is failing, which sucks b/c its the biggest one I have

Edit: going to try the other usb port it was originally plugged into to see if it killed it with the other flash drive as a test... hopefully its still operational..
well crap.... seems all the ports still work but when i plug in this USB drive it just gets extremely hot very quickly within 10-15 seconds... F*&$ I need data on it!!!! I can't even force it to mount! it failed without warning wtf!

 

[Meractik]

anyone know what if any recourse I have to possibly aid in retrieval of my data? or is it gone forever since the solid state flash stick is pretty much dead....

anyone know of any applications maybe I could use to force a mount and data retrieval?

 

[lxskllr]

anyone know what if any recourse I have to possibly aid in retrieval of my data? or is it gone forever since the solid state flash stick is pretty much dead....

anyone know of any applications maybe I could use to force a mount and data retrieval?

I don't think software will fix a hardware problem. The only solutions would be delicate surgery, and would require you to move chips to a new drive of the same kind.

If it were me, I'd take the USB guts out of the case, and see if anything stands out as wrong. If nothing is obvious, try plugging it in like that. If the case is metal, maybe it was shorting on the case. If not, maybe something will work anyway. You aren't gonna break it any more than it is.

 

[Meractik]

I don't think software will fix a hardware problem. The only solutions would be delicate surgery, and would require you to move chips to a new drive of the same kind.

If it were me, I'd take the USB guts out of the case, and see if anything stands out as wrong. If nothing is obvious, try plugging it in like that. If the case is metal, maybe it was shorting on the case. If not, maybe something will work anyway. You aren't gonna break it any more than it is.

This flash drive is of the 'monolithic' type... way beyond my scope of being able to figure out.... I just mailed the drive out overnight to a company that specializes in recovery - if they can't get the data back, no harm they'll send it back to me free of charge. Nothing to lose essentially... and they're backed by the BBB with ToS which states they will not steal my data or keep my devices... So I guess ill find out on monday....

 

[Elixer]

This flash drive is of the 'monolithic' type... way beyond my scope of being able to figure out.... I just mailed the drive out overnight to a company that specializes in recovery - if they can't get the data back, no harm they'll send it back to me free of charge. Nothing to lose essentially... and they're backed by the BBB with ToS which states they will not steal my data or keep my devices... So I guess ill find out on monday....

As a rule of thumb, if your data was worth stealing, then you should never send it out to anyone.
There are no assurances theses days, and the BBB is a joke, they have no legal power at all.

I guess you also now know that nothing is 100% disaster proof, so you should always have backups of important data.

Hope all goes well for you, and get your data back.

 

[Meractik]

I desire the data on it and I recognize I am at fault for not utilizing a backup method for the flash drive... The data that is confidential is stored on the flash encrypted and passworded, so I feel fairly safe in that regard, although there are a lot of other things on that drive that are not as sensitive but still data I wish to retain... Lesson learned, backup, backup, backup..