128 GB Flash Drive Not Working!!

[drumsloot]

Hi,

I bought a biiiig 128GB USB memory stick a while ago. It worked like a dream for the first few days, but now it's just not cooperating.

Here's all my problems to narrow things down a bit:

-The computer recognises that the memory stick exists when it's plugged in, but when I double click it, it says "Please insert a disk into G)".
-The LED on the stick lights up when plugged into a computer.
-I can see it in My Computer on my laptop, but it's not there on my desktop.
-The device is visible in Disk Management.
-It will not allow me to format it - not even with CMD.
-There doesn't appear to be any data on the stick.
-I've tried re-assigning different letters for it to see if anything is conflicting, but still no dice.
-The drivers are up to date.

Any ideas? This is really puzzling me. It might turn out to be simple but I just can't work it out. I really want this stick to work again as it's huuuuge!

Thanks community.

 

[pjmelect]

I think that you have been sold a fake memory stick, I would return it to the supplier if you can. there are a lot of fake high capacity memory sticks coming from China. A fake memory stick can give all of the symptoms you describe once you exceed its true capacity.

 

[drumsloot]

ah heck. The weird thing is that it used to work... isn't there a way to completely reset it? I hardly used it.

 

[mavroxur]

How much did you pay for it?

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

I think that you have been sold a fake memory stick, I would return it to the supplier if you can. there are a lot of fake high capacity memory sticks coming from China. A fake memory stick can give all of the symptoms you describe once you exceed its true capacity.

That's it! +1! Some of my friends believed the same nonsense and were trying to convince me that it works... I was like "lol, NO, such huge capacity USB sticks don't exist, else I'd know about them!" (no arrogance, but I'm a tech junkie... I know what's on the market!) and in three days or so the thing crapped out.

The secret of these things is a f***ed up partition table, if I recall correctly. Basically, they take a cheap-ass memory stick, say, 1GB or even less, and "convince" it that it has over 9000 MB capacity... but you're actually only able to write into the space that's physically present there - 1GB or less or whatever they've used to make this cheating junk. It works for a while - until you fill up the physical space, after which partition table starts to point at non-existing locations and the device is considered malfunctioning by the computer.

Trash that $h!t. Next time, don't buy into something THAT ridiculous. Only trusted brands and only well-known hardware. I haven't seen a single USB stick bigger than 32GB, and they're pretty expensive.

 

[sminlal]

I haven't seen a single USB stick bigger than 32GB, and they're pretty expensive.

There actually are real, bona fide 128GB USB flash memory sticks. For example: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62381&vpn=PEF128GSMNUSB&manufacture=Patriot

But you'll note that the stick I linked to is almost $300. Any cheap 128GB memory stick is almost certainly a fake.

 

[amk-aka-Phantom]

There actually are real, bona fide 128GB USB flash memory sticks. For example: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62381&vpn=PEF128GSMNUSB&manufacture=Patriot

But you'll note that the stick I linked to is almost $300. Any cheap 128GB memory stick is almost certainly a fake.

Lol, that happened few years back... so, now they DO have such sticks? Well, I kind of expected that. But, as I said, I expected them (32GB or more) to cost a lot, and that Patriot stick proves it. As you said, cheap one is definitely a fake.

 

[pjmelect]

To recover to the true size and fix your stick you will need to find the manufactures low level format program. to find the program get the PID and VID for your stick and search the internet.
You will probably find that the correct size of your stick is only 1Gig so you might not want to bother.

 

[mavroxur]

A lot of cheapo knockoff Chinese vendors will take crap 1gb USB sticks, and modify them to report that they're a LOT larger than they actually are. So you copy several gigs of files to them, and after the first GB is written, you start getting write errors.

 

[hforsythe]

Run Flash Drive Tester v1.14 available on CNET...