General Question

intro24's avatar

I "broke" my USB flash drive. Any advice?

Asked by intro24 (1434points) April 7th, 2010

So I had my SanDisk Ultra Titanium plus 4 GB USB Flash Drive, which claims to be durable, in one of my computer’s USB ports. I reached for something past it and bumped it and I literally mean just about the softest tap you could give it and the light went off. The computer (or any other) no longer is recognizing it at all. Granted, the case was slightly opened from prior experiences but it shouldn’t have been enough to have this effect. To me it seems like the power isn’t getting from the port to any components of the USB anymore.

This is about as urgent as it gets for me. I contains the files for a big project due Friday that I obviously don’t have saved anywhere else. SanDisk isn’t being any help. I’ve been waiting on their live chat to find an agent for a half an hour.

If anyone has an idea of what could work then you’re my new hero. Any ideas?

Also, it’s password protected if that makes any difference.

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3 Answers

coogan's avatar

Sounds like a pin may have broken. There’s 4 of them, if you’re confident with soldering, you can take it apart and solder the connection of the broken pin. Or take it to someone else, but it’ll cost you.

Also, you really should have backups of files. Use Dropbox or any alternative, it’s automated, and it’s free. No excuses.

coogan (692points)“Great Answer” (3points) Flag as…
Captain_Fantasy's avatar

The Corsair Survivor is the way to go.
Steel FTW.

Captain_Fantasy (11447points)“Great Answer” (0points) Flag as…
Dr_Lawrence's avatar

USB flash drives are not a good choice for backups for reasons that should be clear now.
They are best used for convenient transportation of data between computers.

As for your problem, reattaching the pin(s) that may be broken is your best current solution.

Dr_Lawrence (20014points)“Great Answer” (2points) Flag as…

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