40GB Usb Drive half dead !

[tk007b]

Hi all,

After lots of searching and trying different tools I am just about lost with how to recover or just re-format my 40gb usb drive.

Symptoms:
1. When I plug into Windows I get the USB drive recognised sound.
2. Under disk drives in Device Manager it comes up with IC25N040 ATMR04-0 USB Device (I have tried uninstalling, rebooting and trying again but without any luck)
3. When I unplug the drive it says Disk in drive J needs formatting", but obviously I can't as I just unplugged it !!. However, I now know the drive letter it's assigning
4. When trying to browse drives explorer hangs until I unplug the USB drive and then the top level display for a split second.
5. If I try in DOS to change to J: it hangs until I unplug but changes to J: when the drive is out. I can then plug back in and type dir which hangs until I unplug the drive but it will show me the files/folders from the top level directory of the drive (but again I've unplugged so I cannot get to it)
4. Nothing shows up in Disk Management (in fact it hangs like explorer until I unplug the drive)

Do I need to smash it with a hammer ?, or can I do something ? ... all recover programs do not see the drive until I unplug it !

Aarrgghh !

TK

[tk007b]

It's in the bin ! .. I guess sometimes you need to know when to say enough.

Oh well, no harm done

[Canker_Canison]

Bit late now, but did you open it up to check for physical damage?

I found a USB drive I'd forgotten about in the washing machine. Must of been there about a month, trapped in the rubber seal.

Opened it up to find a mass of rust covered components. Scrubbed it twice with IPA & allowed to dry off.

Plugged it in and away it went, fully working.

It doesn't take much moisture to cause problems.

I am assuming this is a flash drive.

If it's a HDD try taking it out of the caddy & connecting direct to pc, might be a bad SATA/IDE to USB bridge board.

[ontherack]

did you try the HP usb disk formatting tool, search on their site, this tool helped me out..

[Cod3waX]

try this crazy idea

i have done this

sometimes my external hdd dosent read it just spins and goes click

so i put it on the radiator for 5 mins and problem solved

if that don t work try shaking it so u can hear it spinning
also did this to another hdd to make it work

[tk007b]

Thanks guys,

gave up on it in the end, wasn't much data and was only a small disk, but atleast I've got some options for next time. As I'm sure there will be.

Cheers

T

PS - Good to hear from you Canker. How you doing mate .. all good I hope ?

[Canker_Canison]

Aye, not to bad. Still alive & kicking like a rape victim.

Not won the Euromillions yet.

Where have you been hiding?

[tk007b]

Been through the wars !

Spinal trouble, after failed op ... Ouuch, 100+ pills a week taking their toll

loads of building work on the house, so managing them and the funds too

had to re-apply for my own job in work, Got it, got given a load of extra stuff as reward

apart from that, just down right lazy ;-)

Slowly getting over it all

Latest craze .. Linux and trying to build a media server with a HP Microserver which is has a HP ?100 cash back, till the end of the month (but then extended most months).

Good to be back .. well almost !

[Canker_Canison]

Bit of a rough ride then.

Good to see you back & still smiling.