Sandisk flash memory

Well idiot me always plugged the jumpdrive through my front usb port and never had a problem.

Last night at work, showed a buddy and thought id try it on the comp there, as i was taking it out he said no, click on the task manager to remove it properly i said naaa it's fine. It was.
Last night at home, thought id try it and again, plugged it in and removed it no problem.
This morning plugged it in, but for some reason took it out while it was being loaded and read by the computer.

So it got corrupted, called Sandisk they tried to troubleshoot it and it was fried, they said send it in with proof of purchase and theyll send me a new one.

Asked them they won't try to fix it or anything, just in case, because i do have some personal files and pictures of friends and family on there.
He said not to worry. I trust Sandisk and it's a very reputable company, but the other part of me says what if someone actually tests it out, gets it working and checks the files, not good.

So is there any way to wipe the memory off of it, outside the computer?
ie - taking a magnet to it? friends said, it won't work because it's a chip, inside.

Anyone? Anyone?....
...thanks in advance...

 

Have you tried to reformat the device? If you can, that should wipe out the data on it, though it still might be recoverable with sophisticated software (just as deleted data can be recovered from a floppy or hard drive, even from a hard drive that's been repartitioned and reformatted). Even if you can reformat the flash drive I'd recommend doing a security wipe -- Norton has such a security wipe utility that can overwrite a hard drive or floppy multiple times with random data to insure that previously written data can't be recovered from it and perhaps it would work with a flash drive. I'm not certain that zapped data on flash drives can be recovered the way data on a hard drive often can but if you want to be certain that your personal stuff is really zapped I'd look for some security wipe utilities -- assuming you can do anything with the device, like reformatting it.

I know I recently saw an article about recovering data from flash drives or from compact flash media -- corrupted files resulting from the sort of thing you did -- removing the flash device without first clicking on the "Remove Hardware Safely" icon in the system tray, but not certain exactly where I saw it. Have been reading recent issues of PC Mag, PC World and Maximum PC so it could have been in any one of those. I'll take a peek at my recent issues of those and if I can find the article will post again tomorrow with any info that may be of help to you.

I'm doubtful that a magnet would be of any help, but guess there's no harm in trying if you've given up on recovering any of the data yourself. You might first try searching this site and the internet also, using something like "flash drive file recovery" or something similar to see if you can locate a freeware utility or a reasonably priced commercial product that might help you recover your data or at least insure that it's overwritten enough times so that it's secure/unrecoverable.

I'll look through those magazines I mentioned above tomorrow and will post again if I find anything that may be useful.

Good luck!

 

hey eezak, the tech support guy made me go thru the whole right click my computer > manage > disk management > find the usb jumpdrive (right click and format) but the word "format" wasn't there, so he said, "ok, guess you're going to send that to us and we'll send you a replacement"...

tried it 3 more times after and still no go, won't recognize it, so like the support guy said it's corrupt, just wanted to make sure...especially if there was a way to do it outside with a magnet or what not.

thanks for the reply, if you find the article that'd be great too, no rush tho...thanks again...

 

OK jak3y -- figured that you probably couldn't do anything at all with the flash drive but wanted to be certain as sometimes phone tech people really aren't very helpful or knowledgeable (not slamming SanDisk as I've never called them for tech help -- just reflecting on the often generally sorry state of tech help from even larger companies than SanDisk). Sorry I didn't get to thumbing through the computer magazines yesterday as I'd said I would. Will do that without fail this evening and try to post back with any relevant info for you before hitting the sack tonight.

But if the flash drive is really fried so that you can't even format it I'm guessing your options are pretty limited. Your choices may boil down to keeping the damn thing and losing the money you paid for it or sending it back in exchange for another one with the small risk that a dishonest employee (and nearly every company has a few) may just happen to get hold of your returned flash drive and be able to somehow pull some stuff off of it.

I'm only guessing but I'd think the probability of that happening is quite small. Someone would have to try to hack your damaged device and maybe that's not possible given you can't even format it. And what are the odds that such a disreputable employee would just happen to grab your paticular returned product? I see SanDisk products in most of the larger computer stores I go to and see their ads in magazines and online so I suspect they sell lots of their various products and, consequently, surely have a fair number of returned items to deal with so the odds that someone would just happen to pick your device to see if he could pull anything off of it are probably pretty small.

Still, Murphy's Law says that if anything can go wrong it will and if the remote possibility that someone might be able to recover whatever personal data or pics you stored on the device is really worrisome it might be best to just smash the thing with a hammer, throw it in the trash, and fork out the bucks for a replacement yourself.

Sorry if that's what it comes down to, but I will check the mags this evening and let you know later if I found anything that may be helpful.

 

Re: Sandisk flash memory and magazin article

I looked through recent issues of several computer magazines and found the article I was thinking of in the Jan, 2005 issue of PC World. But I was mistaken about the program's capabilities/purpose -- it's file recovery software to be used on hard drives, floppies and flash media to recover deleted files. I imagine it's no help if the device is not functional, like your flash drive. Still, you can download a free trial version of the software if you want to see if you can do anything with it. It's called File-Rescue Plus by a company called Software Shelf. The full retail version is $40 street price but you can download the free trial for uh...for free...dohhh. I think you have to register before you're allowed to download it though. You can find the free download version at the product's homepage on the web at:

http://www.filerescueplus.com/default.html

The article in PC World also mentioned several commercial data recovery companies that will examine, at no cost to you, a piece of your hardware and tell you whether they believe they can recover any data from it and give you an estimate of what it will cost you if they attempt such recovery. Not sure what the ethics of this situation would be as I suspect you have no intention of paying for such a recovery attempt as it would likely cost you more than it would to just replace the flash drive. And if you contacted such a company and told them you just wanted to be assured that no data could be recovered from your flash drive and would pay a nominal fee for them to examine it, you'd be stuck in the same situation you're worried about already -- what if some dishonest person at one of the data recovery companies...?

But if you might be interested in contacting such a data recovery service, if only to enquire what the likelihood is, based on their experience, that data could be recovered from a damaged flash drive, the companies mentioned in the article were:

1) Media Recover at mediarecover.com

2) Ontrack Data Recovery at ontrack.com

Good luck!