USB problems The Great Flile Vanishing

[Aotrs Commander]

Okay. So I am trying to back up my sutff before I got away (like I always do), but the new 128gb USB stick I'm using is... Not working.

In that ot's registering about 70gb of stuff there, but most of the folders (incuding one which had stuff in before navigatd away and back tp that I JUST copied to) and reading as empty.

The file are NOT hidden (I have hidden files shown as default AND I ran as a website suggested Diskpart command to make them not be hidden - no change).

HIGHLY unlikely to be a virus, since the USB stick goes in exactly 1 PC which is mine (it's one back-up level - one of several, fortunately, but DVD are not big enough to back-up to nowadays).



Suggestions?

Throw away the stick because it's duff? Go screaming bersek because I've just about had it with every single possible thing going wrong one after the other and retrocasually meta-conceptually destroy the everything?

[snowblizz]

It kinda sounds like may have a defective usb chip.

There are programs that does a veeeeery slow write/read test of every part of the usb chip that will tell you how much workable space it actually has. Oh, and do note depending on filesystem usb was formatted it may not accept files over certain threshold sizes,like 2GB.

If you bought it cheap off ebay it's 99% certainty a busted one.

This blog got some links to some software I've used myself to check out some suspicious sd cards.
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and...-with-h2testw/

I like to think going berserk is a nice back-up plan though.

[Lord Torath]

I had a USB flash drive go bad on me within a month of purchase. I contacted the manufacturer, and they sent out a replacement. How new is your flash drive?

[Aotrs Commander]

I had a USB flash drive go bad on me within a month of purchase. I contacted the manufacturer, and they sent out a replacement. How new is your flash drive?

This would only be the second time I've used it, so probably only a mont or so - but it was something Dad got from ebay. (He normally does check that it's from a reasonably reputable manufaturer but at this point, he decided we would just replace it with an SSD (not ideal for long-term storage, but probably not wose than flash drives). And I'm looking into cloud storage services again as well (and that's gonna be expensive like, considering we need currenlty about 70 gig, so its well above the free level).

(Looking like it could easily £50-70 a year...)

[monomer]

If it's an eBay special, you probably got a USB stick that has less than the claimed amount of space (likely 16GB or less), but was formatted to say that it has a 128 GB capacity when plugged into your computer. Anything that you copied beyond the true capacity of the drive will either just get written to nowhere or write over previous data depending on your file system.

[Tarmor]

It does sound like your problem is a fake USB size. Looking around brought up the 'Raymond' page that was previously linked. Might be worth a try to confirm if this is your problem.

[snowblizz]

If it's an eBay special, you probably got a USB stick that has less than the claimed amount of space (likely 16GB or less), but was formatted to say that it has a 128 GB capacity when plugged into your computer. Anything that you copied beyond the true capacity of the drive will either just get written to nowhere or write over previous data depending on your file system.

Yea my experience with ebaying memory in usb or SD format is not good. In fact I'd no longer consider doing so and only buy it in a physical store so I can return it.

[Bohandas]

If you bought it cheap off ebay it's 99% certainty a busted one.

Or possibly a counterfeit that's been hacked to tell the c0mputer that it has more space than it actually does. I heard that that happens sometimes

[snowblizz]

Or possibly a counterfeit that's been hacked to tell the c0mputer that it has more space than it actually does. I heard that that happens sometimes

Not sometimes, often. I include those in the 99% figure.

The ones I got that are defunct, I think goes like this: they are factory rejects that can't be sold.
Someone buys them for next to nothing and programs them to be 32GB (the ones I got are all listed as 32gb), but other sizes may be available. The actual size has been roughly 8gb but never the same for any of them.
Maybe they are designed for that but some of the chips are damaged, or it was just a convenient size to claim to be to sell them cheap enough that people don't question it. A 128GB sd for 5 euro? Must be a scam. A 32gb for 2-3 euro, hey who knows might be legit?
The really fun part is that this isn't someone at home fixing the chips, they are doing it at the plant that makes the real ones because they get at firmware parts you can't change aftermarket.

[Bohandas]

All that said, it still could be a legit drive that broke, and if that were the case than a data recovery firm might be able to help the op.

[snowblizz]

All that said, it still could be a legit drive that broke, and if that were the case than a data recovery firm might be able to help the op.

I'll have to say I first thought the problems was happening *as files are copied over* if that's not the case then unlikely it's 3. If the drive has non redundant data then can't do the checks to see if it is busted. I hope it's not as decent data recovery is expensive. If the problem is 1 or 2 there's also a good chance it is gone as the odds of having a 70gb to spare on a 128gb non working drive is slim.

The three main things that could be going on is

1) it's a damaged drive

2) it's a faked drive which means it acts like 1)

3) the filesystem of the usb as formatted (usually fat32) can't support large files being copied over


Using the tools on the page I linked earlier can tell if it is 1 or 2. 3 can be fixed by formatting in NTFS or exFat.

[Tetrimino]

I experienced a similar problem after using a 128 GB flash drive to reinstall windows. Afterwards the drive registered as having a significantly smaller capacity, but reformatting the drive to the correct capacity restored the drive to normal.