Corrupt files on USB Drive?

Question

I got a (more or less) brand new 16GB USB stick and I recently had the problem that most files on the drive were corrupt with cryptic file names
from the root directory everything looked fine but:
- no files in the root directory were accessible (their names are still intact)
- most files in subfolders are corrupt meaning not accessible and weird filenames

upon properly ejecting the drive and mounting it again the folders with the corrupt files are now simply empty.

Up to now the drive has only been connected to Windows XP machines.

A friend of mine reported having experienced the same problem with his stick on his machine (after he lent me the stick to put some files on it) so I assume there might be the possibility that my machine does this.

I usually don't eject the drive through 'my computer' but simply remove it which never resulted in any problems on other sticks (and to my knowledge should be no problem on XP in comparison to e.g. linux where you really shouldn't do it)

Does anyone have any insight what might have happened? The files were not that important I just don't want it to happen again when I have important files on there.

Answer 1

Yes I have experienced similar problems. The problem seemed to be caused by the cheap brand of flashdrive. The device was faulty and its replacement also developed similar problems.



I know now why flashdrives can be so cheap. I have vowed to 'pay' and buy quality brand flashdrives in the future. ( Also discovered that good drives upload and download alot faster than cheap ones).

:)

Answer 2

archives on a flash stress can corrupt easily and quite in many situations , it is reason maximum of flash drives won't be able of shop as comparable as a hdd , and characteristic issues , yet archives can easily be restored with the chkdsk command on domicile windows or fsck on linux , to attempt fixing the archives on the stress , i do it very in many situations my archives and now and back even my report equipment on a number of my flash drives turns into corrupted . maximum of flash drives have fat32 report equipment that corrupts in many situations then ntfs or ext3 , ext4 .

Answer 3

The problem came from... that time when you messed up your USB Drive.



Lol.



Umm there is a program called System Mechanic

you can get it from iolo.com



Check out the trial and try to fix the drive with it. :)

Answer 4

There's a reason it is recommended to always eject the flashdrive instead of just remove it. You just discovered that reason.