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Post by B8 on Mar 21, 2006 9:46:53 GMT -5
Never trust a USB drive they die for no reason whatsoever. Bummer I have had two casulaties in two days of USB drives with no warning. They just stop responding. Fun times ahead for data recovery.
Modification of orginal - these are 80 and 120 gig hard drives that just stopped functioning. I have to pull the drives and find out if the interface died or what happened to them. Data recover from the disk is what lies ahead.
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Post by TheSeraphim on Mar 21, 2006 9:54:36 GMT -5
I use them strictly to move files. they are not good backup medium. Lightly shielded, easily lost, stepped on, damaged.
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Post by Schweppes7T4 on Mar 22, 2006 2:43:19 GMT -5
...you guys have bad luck... me and my co worker have both put our flashdrives thru the wash more than once. i personally have dropped mine (multiple times... cememnt, concrete, pavement... its badly scratched up), and even ran my old one over with my car... AND IT STILL WORKED... what brands do you guys own?
a suggestion... san disk. and... another brand, forget what the name is at the moment. seriously, san disk is the one i've beat to hell and back, and it still works.
granted, they're not long term backup. cd's and dvd's are for that. but they're great storage none the less. solid state memory, can't be screwed over by magnets like floppies could (i remember when cd's were still getting popular... people were afraid magnets could screw those up... lol)
so.. yeah
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Post by B8 on Mar 22, 2006 8:34:13 GMT -5
I was talking about two hard drives in USB cases. But:
Get your data off of that flash drive. It will quit on you without any warning. The moisture is insidious and working to kill your drive right now. Once it gets inside the case of the chips it will destroy the functionality of the device. And the moisture will get in eventually. You just do not know when it will get there nor do you know when it will explode into steam. Yes I said steam. Even small chips at low power are running so hot that they can generate steam. One microscopic steam explosion and bang no more drive. I have spent too many years looking through stereoscopes at what the QA people have told me to look at to do anything but believe it myself. The water gets under the chip destroys the bonding and heat dissipation route, then minuscule pop, chip is dead. Water dissolves all!
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Post by TheSeraphim on Mar 22, 2006 10:07:48 GMT -5
I carry a PNY flashdrive with me "just in case."
I also try not to wash my electronics...
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Post by TheSeraphim on Mar 22, 2006 10:08:37 GMT -5
Oh good grief, look at the ad above us. Google searches the page you're on and puts an ad according to terms found on the page. FLASH DRIVES are now in the ad I see  Crafty buggers! |
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Post by Schweppes7T4 on Mar 22, 2006 10:16:02 GMT -5
the secret is you have it let it dry out first.
honestly, putting it thru the drier after the washing machine would do more damage. i just happened to do both, then left it out where it could dry for sure before i used it again.
just like you can take your graphics card and wash it in distilled water. just make its its 100% dry before you attempt to reinstall it.
old school, baby!
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Post by B8 on Mar 22, 2006 12:11:49 GMT -5
To clean any electronics you use 91% isopropyl alcohol. NOT distiled water. Again if you look you will find that all plastic cased electronic chips are water permeable. The only type of chip that is water impermeable is a military or space rated ceramic chip. Use distiled water at your own peril.
I am OLD school and we NEVER used water to clean anything containing electronic components. NONE of them are rated for over 90% humidity let alone immersion in water. Go to the Texas Instrument, Intel, any Nipponese site you want an LOOK at the specifications.
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Post by B8 on Mar 26, 2006 11:55:56 GMT -5
It turns out that a cheap external USB home assembled hard drive overloaded the USB power bus.
Lesson - do not go cheap for any computer component.
This destroyed the USB adapter on the front and the USB PCI adapter card in my computer. Beware cheap USB 2 components.
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Post by DubiousMonkey on Mar 26, 2006 12:05:09 GMT -5
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Post by Mr. Sassy Pants on Mar 26, 2006 14:12:30 GMT -5
that is freakin awsome!
i wants one...=P
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Post by Amy on Mar 26, 2006 18:48:01 GMT -5
Amy can't seem to break her USB drives....  its not only decased, its bent, and still runs PERFECTLY. and its older than dirt. its one of the first ones out that was big enough to get me to buy it. Lexar products.... they don't break! should probably mention for about four years this thing was on a keychain with my keys... dropped, abused and otherwise subjected to torture beyond what they should hold up to. (including a close call at work involving water...) |
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Post by Schweppes7T4 on Mar 26, 2006 22:57:08 GMT -5
lexar... that's the actual Jumpdrive, right? those are the original and best by far
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Post by B8 on Mar 27, 2006 10:19:37 GMT -5
The mother board is toast now. Three electrolytic bypass capacitors overpressured opened. So no smoke or fire. In the bad old days you had a sound to go by when they went. A loud pop because there was no relief built into them. The larger ones made BIG BANG when they went. Ah for the old days of smoke fire and noise. Oh btw they also stank, enough to drive you out of where you were working at the time.
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Post by DubiousMonkey on Apr 1, 2006 11:22:56 GMT -5
Yum! and don't forget that the old caps had PCB laden fluid as well - just like transformers.
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Crafty buggers!
