How Can I Check If My Usb Drive Is Failing?

So I bought a brand new Kingston Memory USB not too long ago, I'd say maybe 8 months ago or so. But I've only used it maybe 5-10 times inserted into a Mac and Pc. Recently I've been noticing that some photos show up unclear, fuzzy, or when trying to launch I'll get a "could not open file may be damaged" message on the Mac. Sometimes when I reinsert the USB drive other files will start to pop up damaged/unclear/fuzzy that weren't the insert before.

Is there a way to check the health of this USB drive? I'm surprised that a Kingston drive would do this. It's supposed to be top tier. I thought there was a certain amount of read/writes these could do... I should be well under that. Anyways this sucks... I've got a lot of important stuff on there. A little help would go a long way. I'm wondering if I should just recopy the good working files from the Mac to the damaged files on the USB as an overwrite. Maybe that would fix them or use up other free undamaged space. I really want to check if it's my USB drive so I can stop using it!

Thanks

Ps
Running checkdisk on a pc shows no problems, same thing with Disk Utility on a Mac. Maybe some copied wrong initially, but then again that doesn't define why some images are corrupt while others aren't and then on reinsert you find new ones corrupted.

 

You check its health the same way as any external drive.
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/184611en

I'm sure Kingston operate - at minimum - a 12 month warranty. Just get it replaced or refunded.

 

HD Sentinel works with most USB drives. IMO it has the best hardware support of any SMART and hard disk diagnostic tools.

 

Ummm, @UPI and Max - pretty sure the only USB drives Kingston makes are flash drives - not external hard drives.

Even the best from the best can fail. And these devices are not high-tech by any means so it really boils down to construction/assembly quality. So if it did not fall apart before now, not sure there was anything Kingston could have done. These devices can fail for any number of reasons, including getting zapped by static pulling it out of your pocket.

That said, image files might become corrupt and/or unreadable, but they would not become "fuzzy" or no longer in focus. So not sure what you mean by that.

USB Flash drives should never be used for permanent storage and certainly not as the only storage location for important files. They just are not robust enough. I would attempt to copy off everything you can recover from that device, then format it and start over. But note it should then be used for temporary storage - to take files from home to work, for example. And never for anything important without having at least one secure backup in another location.

 

You can use Check Flash.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/check_flash.html

 

I appreciate the advice so far, and yes it is a USB flash drive. Come to think of it the drive is a lot older than I thought. Maybe four years but I haven't used it much. Although one of you is right about possible static electricity or reformatting could help. I dunno... I'm trying to recoup the same files over the corrupt ones to see if they repair or not. Since if it is in a specific damaged flash block then it would still appear damaged once recopied.

But yes again thanks for the pointers so far, I'm looking to scan this USB flash drive with any software that can read bad parts of it so I know for sure it's a piece of junk. I do have important files on it. So I'm not trying to use it sooo much until I really get back home with enough time to dump it all in my main Pc. Which won't be anytime soon...

 

Over them? To me, flash drives are not trustworthy enough to maintain my files to begin with. So one that has become corrupted is even less trustworthy. If me, I would simply try to recover those files, perhaps with program like Recuva from the makers of CCleaner and copy those files to a local hard drive or SSD. Then physically destroy that flash drive (if it had any sensitive data on it) and toss it.

Since you cannot immediately save them off to your main PC, consider copying them temporarily into a temp folder on the computer you are using now then perhaps emailing them to yourself for later retrieval on your main system, or temporarily storing them in "the cloud". I would, however, encrypt them before storing them in the cloud.

 

If you are unsure how much life is left on your hard drive, read this article to find out what signs may reveal an approaching failure. Check this article on MakeUseOf- http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-signs-hard-drive-lifetime/

 

@Dustin DeTorres - Please note the user has reiterated that this is a flash drive, not a hard drive.

 

Depending on how old your system is.It could be the USB port as well.After so long usb ports do fail.There is no given time frame for them.

 

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/dead-usb-port-heres-how-to-diagnose-and-fix-it/