Jump drive problem

[Muse]

I have a lot of jump drives but one favorite that sits on one of my keychains. It's a Lexar 128GB, very small and fits into a sleeve attached to my keys:

Lexar JumpDrive S45 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - LJDS45-128ABNL (Black)

The drive has lots of free space. I'm suddenly unable to read/write to/from the drive. I get this in Windows:
--------------------------
Error Checking (Lexar (E)

There was a problem repairing this drive

Windows was unable to repair the drive. Close this dialog box, and then try to repair the drive again.

[Close]

Show Details
------------------------------------

When I click Show Details it shows nothing. I'm getting mixed results when I continue to try to repair it. I was at least able to see the file names and copy them to a text file so I know what is missing on it. That helps, but I'd really like to successfully repair the thing short of attempting to FORMAT it!

Is there anything I can do besides running Windows (W10) built-in drive repair functionality?

 

[corkyg]

I have several of those drives. They are pretty tough, but like any and all flash drives, they are subject to failure. AFAIK, they are not fixable, but replaceable.

 

[VirtualLarry]

AFAIK, they are not fixable, but replaceable.

This. Entirely.

Buy another flash drive, OP. And consider yourself lucky, if you didn't lose data. Don't put your ONLY copy of something on a flash drive.

I use them for boot drives, for installing OSes (A write-once, on a fresh new drive, read-mostly task), and for TEMPORARILY transferring files from one PC to another (in cases where my NAS is inconvenient to access). Also, for backing up client's old PC during a "migration", onto a fresh, new, flash drive. (Well, back up onto a larger external portable USB mechanical HDD, and then transfer files when done backing up, onto a flash drive for final delivery to client, since they generally don't need a full HDD to store their pertinent data.)

Also, for flashing BIOS / UEFI on mobos that allow self-flashing in BIOS / UEFI (most of them, these days, it's pretty-much a staple feature).

 

[DaveSimmons]

They fail instantly with no warning and no hope of repair, like the "click of death" on older hard drives. Never trust a single backup, always have multiples.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

“Everything that now exists, no matter how great and good it is, lasts for a time, fulfills a purpose, and then passes on. And so it will be with all the works of art that now exist; an eternal veil of forgetfulness will lie over them, just as there is now over those things that came before.”

 

[Muse]

They fail instantly with no warning and no hope of repair, like the "click of death" on older hard drives. Never trust a single backup, always have multiples.

Yup, I just didn't know. I will hopefully not make that mistake again. I will treat flash memory differently in the future, assume it may die at any moment, hopefully. I am usually pretty good with being backed up. Like I say, this isn't a tragedy, but is a wake up call and certainly a disappointment.

I was quite cavalier with flash drives before this. Many times a computer would complain about them, offer to fix them, and they always managed to do so in a few seconds, no apparent problem. This time, no siree.

So, confirm: there's no sense in trying to reformat this 128GB flash drive? Just toss it in the trash?

This is a 128GB, and tiny as can be. Large as it is, it was my go to flash drive and I'd pretty much set aside the 4 or so 16GB flash drives I had been using. Those really are large enough for the stuff I do, basically, so will go back to using them. I got the 128GB Lexar for around $28, but looked pretty recently and saw it's tripled in price, so I don't think I'll be getting another big one soon unless I have a need for big data. I have a lot of HD based portable storage, so that isn't really likely.

 

[corkyg]

... So, confirm: there's no sense in trying to reformat this 128GB flash drive? Just toss it in the trash?

Yep!

 

[DaveSimmons]

I had a corrupted drive where re-formatting it fixed it, and it's been working properly since then months later. It doesn't hurt to let Windows try to reformat, but if that fails then into the trash it goes.

 

[Muse]

I had a corrupted drive where re-formatting it fixed it, and it's been working properly since then months later. It doesn't hurt to let Windows try to reformat, but if that fails then into the trash it goes.

Check... thanks!

 

[Muse]

I had a corrupted drive where re-formatting it fixed it, and it's been working properly since then months later. It doesn't hurt to let Windows try to reformat, but if that fails then into the trash it goes.

l will try reformatting it. I've pretty much given up on saving any data from it. I did manage to copy a couple of big files, around 500MB each and they seem OK, but there are around 20 others I don't think I can get. Fixing it seems impossible. A reformat might work, I'll try that. I did manage to get a directory listing (dir e: > d:\dir.txt), and got the the point where I could view the files in the root directory, which were the ones I care about the most. The great majority of the data on the drive lives elsewhere, but some of it does not.