Fixing USB Flash Drive with Corrupted Data

[Frank-0-Sport]

Greetings ...

For well over a year now I have been using a Sony Micro 512-mb USB Flash Drive, which has worked well - until yesterday.

The Sony drive holds all files that I upload to a personal web-site. Those files are also on my hard drive at home, as well as on a PNY Attache' 1-gig Flash Drive. When I am at work, I use the Firefox browser (primary, MS-IE is backup) to access the files on the Sony Drive itself, as I refrain from storing personal data on my work computer's main hard drive.

At work yesterday evening, accessed data on the Sony drive started to appear corrupted. I used both the Firefox and MS-IE browsers and got the same bad results. Upon reaching home, I copied all files over to the PNY 1-gig drive, then overwrote the PNY files with those on my home PC hard drive. Everything was OK as far as accessing the PNY drive.

Next some other files and folders were transferred off the Sony Drive, then I erased everything on the drive. Next, all the web-site files were re-copied back to the Sony Drive.

Result - Accessing everything on the Sony drive was OK once more.

OK, here's what all of this boils down to. I was saving, deleting and modifiying files every day on the Sony Drive. Not once (before yesterday) did I perform any type of drive maintenance (scans for errors, re-organizing data clusters, etc.)

So, did a lack of proper drive maintenance, plus the constant writing, deleting and re-writing lead to the corruption of data? Or might there be another reason for the corruption?

Also, I have no provisions for error scanning or cluster re-organzition on a flash drive. If such software exists, I would appreciate being pointed to it.

Thanx-A-Lot, Frank-0-Sport

[iacas]

Flash drives fail occasionally. Well over a year of constant use is about the mean.

[Frank-0-Sport]

Greetings ...

Thanks for your advice. I posted this at several online sights, and many of the repsonses that I got are in accordance with yours.

I have already transferred my data to a new flash drive (PNY Attache 1-Gig). I will try and limit writes to it, as well as be sure to follow the "Safely Remove Hardware" routine.

Thanx-A-Lot, Frank-0-Sport