USB drive stopped writing files

[M Skabialka]

A friend using Windows 2000 has been using a USB flash drive to store
documents since her machine is quite old - this is the backup. Suddenly
last week when she was trying to copy a file to it, it said that the flash
drive was read-only and nothing could be copied to it. I had her do a
chkdsk on it and found no errors, but she was still unable to write. She
was able to copy all of the files from the drive to her computer, then I had
her format the flash drive in Windows Explorer. Now she can't write
anything to it. She's not on the Internet so doesn't introduce visruses,
trojans etc, to her computer.
Is there any other way to get the drive usable again? It's fairly new,
lesss than a year old, and stays near the computer, so isn't subjected to
heat/cold/stress/collision damage.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

A friend using Windows 2000 has been using a USB flash drive to store
documents since her machine is quite old - this is the backup. Suddenly
last week when she was trying to copy a file to it, it said that the flash
drive was read-only and nothing could be copied to it. I had her do a
chkdsk on it and found no errors, but she was still unable to write. She
was able to copy all of the files from the drive to her computer, then I
had her format the flash drive in Windows Explorer. Now she can't write
anything to it. She's not on the Internet so doesn't introduce visruses,
trojans etc, to her computer.
Is there any other way to get the drive usable again? It's fairly new,
lesss than a year old, and stays near the computer, so isn't subjected to
heat/cold/stress/collision damage.

There are three possible reasons for this failure:
a) The flash disk could have failed.
b) The PC's USB port could have failed.
c) There is something wrong with the USB driver on her PC.
Before doing anything else, you must eliminate b) and c) by
testing the flash drive on a different PC.

 

[Sid Elbow]

A friend using Windows 2000 has been using a USB flash drive to store
documents since her machine is quite old - this is the backup. Suddenly
last week when she was trying to copy a file to it, it said that the flash
drive was read-only and nothing could be copied to it.

Not sure about flash drives per se but some flash memory cards have a
manual switch that renders the card read-only. It's possible that some
manufacturers of USB Flash Drives do that too.

Usually the switch is tiny and hard to notice. I would guess it would be
possible to move it accidentally.

In any event, these things are pretty inexpensive these days so if it's
at all suspect and is being used as a backup medium, I'd go for a new one.

 

[M Skabialka]

There is a switch on it, but the same results happens no matter which way
the switch is set.
She's unemployed and doing a job search, so even a flash drive is a chunk of
the budget, but it may be her only choice.

 

[M Skabialka]

I'll have to see if she can find someone else with a USB port for testing.
She didn't have to install a driver on Windows 2000 to start off with though
to use it. She has no Internet connection to get a new driver, and lives a
long way from me as far as testing it myself goes.
I hadn't realized a flash drive could fail - the worse that has happened to
me was one misreporting the free space by incredible quanities (thousands of
GB) but that was fized by formatting. As Sid said, she may have to get a
new one, though I wish there was a easy (free) fix!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'll have to see if she can find someone else with a USB port for testing.
She didn't have to install a driver on Windows 2000 to start off with
though to use it. She has no Internet connection to get a new driver, and
lives a long way from me as far as testing it myself goes.

She could send it to you for the cost of a postage stamp.

Even though she did not have to install a USB driver,
there is still one in Windows - the native USB driver.

 

[Sid Elbow]

There is a switch on it, but the same results happens no matter which way
the switch is set.

That's actually rather curious. If it *is* a write protect switch and
it's write protected in both positions, it suggests a hardware failure.
Can you perhaps get the make/model of the drive so that you could check
the manufacturer's website and confirm the switch function?

She's unemployed and doing a job search, so even a flash drive is a chunk of
the budget, but it may be her only choice.

Sorry, we tend to get a little cavalier sometimes.

 

[M Skabialka]

What are my options if she sent it to me?

She could send it to you for the cost of a postage stamp.

Even though she did not have to install a USB driver,
there is still one in Windows - the native USB driver.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

What are my options if she sent it to me?

You plug it into your PC the way you plug any other
flash drive in a PC and check if the problem persists!