[50 pts] USB Pen Drive serious problem

Hi members,

I have a serious problem with my USB pen drive. This happenend with me twice. The first time was last week with a new 4Gb pen drive. I used the device two days. The next day the device couldn't be recognized when I plug it to any computer. I plugged an usb mouse and it worked perfectly. I'm sure that the USB port is ok and that the problem comes from the pendrive. Some friends told me that my pen drive is broken so I put it in the trash .

Since then, I used my old pend drive (2Gb). Yesterday the same thing happen to me with this device. I'm convinced now that there is a serious problem with my Laptop. As a first attempt I scanned the computer with Avira antivirus but the device is still not recognized by any computer including mine. I dont know how to resolve the problem.
I have two doubts:
- The first is that the USB port burns pendrives (maybe it has high current) that's why I didn't buy and plug other ones
- The second doubt is that there is a very powerfull virus on my PC that make a pendrive unrecognized by any other computer.

Please help me asap guys coz I have importants documents inside the pendrive.

Thanks in advance.
Advares

My understanding is, that the pen drive descriptors are placed in flash memory with many products, e.g. to allow branding
of the device. You may want to check with an USB monitor or protocol sniffer, if the device is responding in the enumeration
process and if it does, as what kind of device. If it doesn't respond at all, you can expect a hardware defect.

A hardware defect may be still repairable, e.g. a broken solder joint at the USB connector. You can check continuity of the
USB pins without disassembling the device.

FvM said:

My understanding is, that the pen drive descriptors are placed in flash memory with many products, e.g. to allow branding
of the device. You may want to check with an USB monitor or protocol sniffer, if the device is responding in the enumeration
process and if it does, as what kind of device. If it doesn't respond at all, you can expect a hardware defect.

A hardware defect may be still repairable, e.g. a broken solder joint at the USB connector. You can check continuity of the
USB pins without disassembling the device.

Click to expand...

Thanks FvM for your reply.
This happened twice. The symptoms are exactely the same. The first lost pendrive was new. I used different OSs (XP SP1, SP3 and fedora8) to detect it but with no success. When I plug the device the led of the pendrive become on but I get nothing. No even a warning message telling that the device can't be recognized.

The problem is not the hardware. I think that the problem is due to a virus that attacks the boot sector of the pendrive since:

- In one week I lost two pendrive in the same way. (This is not a coincidence)
- Device can't be detected by any computers and any OS.

Is my thinking True ?
Do you know how to repair boot sectors of USB pen drives ?


Thanks in advance.
Advares.

I think that the problem is due to a virus that attacks the boot sector

Click to expand...

An unconfigured/unformatted mass storage device would still show up in the device tree of the system control manager, or at
least as an unknown USB device. Did you check?

If the boot sector sector is damaged, the device would be accessible by data rescue tools.

I also once experienced a case, where an USB memory stick lost it's identity, but showed up as a different mass storage
device (apparently the controller chip's default type) afterwards. That's why I guessed, that the identity (the USB
descriptor table) is stored in a flash memory.

Even if the device isn't identifying as a mass storage device, it should take part in USB device enumeration and be visible
to software tools. Or it's completely dead, but then it's most likely a hardware problem.

FvM said:

I think that the problem is due to a virus that attacks the boot sector

Click to expand...

An unconfigured/unformatted mass storage device would still show up in the device tree of the system control manager, or at
least as an unknown USB device. Did you check?

If the boot sector sector is damaged, the device would be accessible by data rescue tools.

I also once experienced a case, where an USB memory stick lost it's identity, but showed up as a different mass storage
device (apparently the controller chip's default type) afterwards. That's why I guessed, that the identity (the USB
descriptor table) is stored in a flash memory.

Even if the device isn't identifying as a mass storage device, it should take part in USB device enumeration and be visible
to software tools. Or it's completely dead, but then it's most likely a hardware problem.

Click to expand...

Ok. Consider that the two devices are broken. What broke them ? I always handle them with care. Furthermore, I bought the 4Gb pendrive very recently and now its gone. I'm afraid that I lose other ones in the same way. I will not buy another unless I understand what caused that.

Is my laptop the cause of that ? Is the USB port responsible of the failure ?
What should I do in that case ?

It's an unusual case, and I don't have any explanation.

Hi,
I had such a problem with my LG 2GB MP4 player. There was a virus in the device but I didn't clear it, thinking maybe it won't do as much harm, but one day, it just wasn't detected on my PC. So I guess it was for the virus. Maybe yours is also because of a virus.
Another thing, my friend faced the same problem with his 4GB pendrives in the school lab. Later they realized there was a fault with the motherboard. They changed the mobo and it was fine after that. Maybe you could get your hardware checked.

Tahmid said:

Hi,
I had such a problem with my LG 2GB MP4 player. There was a virus in the device but I didn't clear it, thinking maybe it won't do as much harm, but one day, it just wasn't detected on my PC. So I guess it was for the virus. Maybe yours is also because of a virus.

Click to expand...

Hi Tahmid,
Could you please tell me how did you resolve the problem ?
What's the name of the virus? Maybe I can find a fix for it.
Actually, I have some important documents to recover.

Hi,
I think it was Trojan Loader or something like that. Anyway, back then I used AVG PRO v7.5. It just removed the virus.
Too bad my MP4 player didn't function anymore. But then I got me a Microlab MP3 player. I never faced that problem again.
You could try one thing. Roll back the drivers and insert your pen drive again and see if it is detected.

get the latest version of the mainboards chipset drivers
if it uses intel look on intel's site for them

mostly the problem will go away when you do this

for virus removal you can buy a copy for about 15euros of AVIRA
ive never found a better killer yet

if you use vista o/s there is also a service pak 2 been released now

so stick it in also first also update as needed after sp2 goes in

Download the UVCView.x86.exe tool (It's part of Windows driver development kit but you can download it separately as well).

Run the tool. It will list all the USb devices on your system. Plug-in you USb disk and see what information (descriptors) is shown for that. If no information is shown then your device's hardware has become faulty.

In case of no descriptors displayed...
What cause this fault; can just be a speculation here.
You said your same port works well for mouse so, current is less likely to be a possibilty here. If it is that then many of other USB devices on your laptop would have experienced problems because your motherboard circuitry wasn't able to control the current flow. Also if it is a well known USB disk, it would have been certified by USB-IF and I suppose that would have ensured that the device doesn't try to draw current that is beyond the specs.

In case of descriptors displayed...
Then USB isn't corrupted. Your file system on USb is corrupted. Reverting to data rescue tools may help.

To me it appears that your file system (usually FAT32) is corrupted due improper device ejection or possible USB port hardware/software failure.

As far as data recovery is concerned, you can use easy do that, there are plenty of utilities for that provided there is no hardware damage to your drive.

from what ive read many pen drives and usb devices in general
benfit in vista from sp2 or in xp from chipset drivers

so get with it there
then speculate ,,, on known issues ,...:|