# My 2 flash drives won't work on any computer anymore



## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

I have two flash drives, one 1GB PNY drive, and one 8GB Micro Center drive. The problems started first with the PNY drive. I noticed that it had a hidden file that just randomly appeared on it one day, namde svchost.exe. To my understanding, this windows Host process shouldn't be on a flash drive, which makes me think that it was actually a virus that killed my flash drives. I scanned the flash drive with my antivirus, NOD32, but it didn't find anything. A few days after this situation, the flash drive wouldn't show up on the computer I was using. So i thought that maybe it was the computer I was using. Then I tried on three other computers; none of them recognized it, with the exception of one computer that just reported it as an unrecognized USB device, even though that's what it says for any USB device you plug into it. This, however, did give me a little hope. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to get that flash drive to work. I thought that maybe the flash drive was just naturally going bad, as I've used it a lot for the past 5 years, but now my 8GB drive is going too (which isn't even a year old). So I'm thinking something else is involved. Now when I plug in my Micro Center flash drive, it shows up for a few seconds, and I can open it up ad see the files still on it, but when I try to interact with those files in any way, the flash drive just disappears and is no longer recognized by my computer. What can I do to fix these drives? They have all my school work on them. Could it be a virus that's doing this? Is there any kind of program that could fix them? I tried to format the Micro Center drive while it's connected, but it doesn't stay recognized long enough to format.


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

The 1Gb drive is dead. If it isn't recognized by any PC, then it's toast.

As for the 8GB, test it on another PC.


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

The same thing happens to the 8GB drive on all PCs


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

This has to be a virus or something, my external hard drive isn't being recognized by my computers either now. What can I do to stop this madness?

EDIT: I tried plugging my hard drive straight into a SATA power plug and not connecting data and it won't even spin up. It's like none of these things are even accepting the electricity through. What can I do to fix these things? I have a lot of important data on them...


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

Well I figured out what's going on, the one computer that gives the unrecognized USB device message seems to be killing whatever I plug into it... Is there any way to retrieve the data of these things, or possibly replace components on the PCBs to get them working again?


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

Anyone have any ideas?


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

Anyone have any suggestions at all?


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

If they aren't recgonized, they are toast. Nothing to be done, at least for the USB thumb drives. The external HDD, you can try removing the HDD from the enclosure and connecting it directly inside another PC or try an external adapter. Mostly likely it just the USB interface that has been damaged.


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

I had tried connecting the laptop hard drive directly to my computer, and it won't even spin up when I plug in the power. The external enclosure seems to be working fine with other drives so I don't think the enclosure was damaged. Is there any way to repair the hard drive?


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

Not if it isn't even powering on. And even if it were, there isn't much that can be done outside of a clean room. You can take or send it somewhere to be recovered, but it will likely be thousands of dollars.


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

would it be possible to buy another drive of the same model and switch out the PCBs to recover the data? I heard that there's a low chance of that working bc something about the firmware becoming unique over time.


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## habib272 (Sep 20, 2010)

i have 4gb usb micro center its show 0 byte where i can download software


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## cd216513 (May 2, 2008)

The USB driver install should be automatic for most current OSes. What OS are you running? I ended up just throwing my 250GB away, and PNY said they couldn't help me at all and I was just screwed for buying their product. When I talked to Micro Center, they told me that their house brand flash items are covered by a warranty so they replaced that flash drive for free. Did yours just recently stop working or did it never work at all? How long have you owned it?


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## JimE (Apr 16, 2009)

habib272 said:


> i have 4gb usb micro center its show 0 byte where i can download software


Please create your own topic, don't post in someone elses.


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## caalopez (Jun 13, 2011)

Hello,
Im having the same problem on Windows 7, my pc has already toasted 2 16gb flash drives, 1 4gb flash drive, and an external usb drive, did you find a solution or a hint of what might be causing this?


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