computer wizards I need help please

[Dznypal]

I sell things on ebay and keep everything on a flashdrive
so today I took some pictures of other things to list and
after downloading them through icloud my next step is to take them and put them on my flashdrive
I am no good with computer so this was a great step forward

everything was going great with my system until tonight

I was able to transfer 3 pics from the download when I get a message to "format disc D"

Im afraid to to anything else I dont want to delete anything

when I go to my computer icon and click on that my flashdrive used to show up--my husband's is there but not mine

could someone please explain this all to me--I just dont want to lose everything I have on there

just curious as to why all of a sudden it says to format disc
please be very basic as computers and me never got along

thanks all

 

[kdonnel]

You have probably lost everything.

Flash memory is not very durable and has a very short life span. Sounds like the flash drive failed.

 

[Imzadi]

Turn off your computer.

Unplug the flash drive.

Turn on your computer again and when booted fully up then plug your flash drive back in. See if it shows up then.

 

[Imzadi]

Also, do you have a different computer that you can try plugging your flash drive into to test and see if it works in that computer?

 

[DLgal]

Oh boy. You're probably out of luck. It sounds like your flash drive is corrupted.

Why not just download the photos to your computer from icloud? Seems like you are creating an extra step that is not needed.

 

[Dznypal]

My DH tried it on his laptop. And it says something about a USB sorry I can’t remember exactly what. On the main computer it would say memorex not USB but looking at that it says zero otherwise it said how many gigs were used and available. How does a flash drive get corrupted. DH has had his flash drive a lot longer then me snd he never had the issues I’m having. This is so aggravating a few months ago a few of my rewards programs stopped working. They wouldn’t load and now this for my eBay. I need a new hobby thanks for the suggestions

 

[bcla]

You have probably lost everything.

Flash memory is not very durable and has a very short life span. Sounds like the flash drive failed.

I've worked at some companies where we worked with flash memories, EEPROMs, and other non-volatile memories.

Actually it's quite durable. Long term retention time is in the decades (about 100 years at 75ºF) as long as they're just stored somewhere at room temperature. It will go down when it's close to boiling temperature, which even most SSDs don't reach, and USB flash drives won't get anywhere near that hot. And if you actually use it often enough, block erases and wear leveling will make sure that data is rewritten so that the retention time clock countdown restarts.

The biggest problem isn't going to be durability but data corruption. I'd worry far more about the file system or wear leveling table getting borked (which sounds like what happened to the OP) than about durability.

 

[Imzadi]

How does a flash drive get corrupted

When it's time to take the flash drive out of the computer, do you do the steps to turn off the flash drive and disconnect it from the computer before pulling it out of the slot? Or do you just pull it out of the slot? If you pull it out of the slot without disconnecting it, that can corrupt the drive.

Also, every time you add a little bit of data to the drive, it doesn't work like a computer and just add that bit to the hard drive and leaves the rest of the stuff on the hard drive alone. For flashdrives, it re-writes ALL the data on the flashdrive all over again while adding that little bit on. You may be disconnecting and pulling out the flashdrive before it's done writing all the info again. And as a PP said, they are not that durable to keep rewriting all the data over and over and over again.

 

[bcla]

When it's time to take the flash drive out of the computer, do you do the steps to turn off the flash drive and disengage it from the computer? Or do you just pull it out of the slot? If you pull it out of the slot, that can corrupt the drive.

Also, every time you add a little bit of data to the drive, it doesn't work like a computer and just add that bit to the hard drive. For flashdrives, it re-writes ALL the data on the flashdrive all over again while adding that little bit on. You may be disengaging the flashdrive before it's done writing all the info again. And as a PP said, they are not that durable to keep rewriting all the data over and over and over again.

It really depends. I'm not going to get into the crazy technical nature of NAND flash storage, but it's really about storing 1/2/3/4 bits per MOS transistor. My numbers are approximate because there are variables beyond just the technology type. The single-level cell (2 states) was rated at about 100,000 block erase cycles. Multi-level (4 states) was rated at about 10,000 block erase cycles. Tri-level (8 states) was rated at about 3,000 block erase cycles. The latest is quad-level (16 states) is now less than 1,000 block erase cycles. But then there's other technologies that improve endurance like 3D stacking. In addition to that, a lot of these drives use single-level as a temporary cache to handle the first level where there might be a lot of writes, and then wait for everything to settle down before writing back to the bulk storage.

But the reality is that the average user doesn't really go through that many block erase cycles. I heard one estimate that even a power user like a data center would take a minimum of 20 years to wear out a quad-level flash SSD, and they're going to be replacing well before that time. I've got an SSD with tri-level NAND flash for two years, and the wear level is still reporting 100%.

 

[cobright]

The real question is this, do you “eject” drive before removing the flash drive every single time?

The default settings in windows supposedly makes pulling a hot flash drive no-big-deal. But that’s a fallback security measure and not a basket I would trust with all of my eggs.

 

[kdonnel]

I've worked at some companies where we worked with flash memories, EEPROMs, and other non-volatile memories.

Actually it's quite durable. Long term retention time is in the decades (about 100 years at 75ºF) as long as they're just stored somewhere at room temperature. It will go down when it's close to boiling temperature, which even most SSDs don't reach, and USB flash drives won't get anywhere near that hot. And if you actually use it often enough, block erases and wear leveling will make sure that data is rewritten so that the retention time clock countdown restarts.

The biggest problem isn't going to be durability but data corruption. I'd worry far more about the file system or wear leveling table getting borked (which sounds like what happened to the OP) than about durability.

Flash memory found in thumb drives and SD cards has a very limited number of write cycles compared to an SSD or spinning hard drive. That is the durability I was referring to.

A thumb drive or SD card should not be used like an SSD or hard drive. Doing so without a backup is just setting your self up for disappointment.

 

[bcla]

Flash memory found in thumb drives and SD cards has a very limited number of write cycles compared to an SSD or spinning hard drive. That is the durability I was referring to.

A thumb drive or SD card should not be used like an SSD or hard drive. Doing so without a backup is just setting your self up for disappointment.

There's no hard and fast rule, but there's not necessarily anything different about USB flash drive retention or durability than there is with SSDs when it comes the the NAND flash. There may be differences with what the manufacturer chooses to put in there. I remember the first USB flash drives and back around 2002 they must have been made with with single-level flash, which is inherently very durable.

The biggest problem is going to be with all the stuff behind the scenes - the drive controller, especially how good it is at error correction. And the wear leveling algorithm. Plus the vulnerability to being corrupted if it's pulled out during a data transfer or even random events. I'd worry a lot about those things compared to whether or not the flash memory itself is less durable. Almost nobody uses one enough to actually put the endurance to any reasonable test. I've had one fail because the USB port broke, although it was this weird one that used plastic instead of metal.

 

[kdonnel]

Almost nobody uses one enough to actually put the endurance to any reasonable test.

I have seen multiple SD cards and USB thumb drives fail in my short life.

My company has about 5,000 Raspberry Pi out in the field and deal with multiple SD card failures every month. The cards last about 2 years, and that is using high endurance cards that cost much more than the regular cards people typically purchase.

I also have an Ubiquiti USG 3p router that uses a USB thumb drive as the boot drive. On the community support forums there have been multiple reports of thumb drive failure. Enough that there is a community documented way of installing a new thumb drive with the base software to recover.

There is also Tesla. Tesla has greatly increased logging as time has gone on. The eMMC in MCU1 is particularly susceptible to failure. Enough that Tesla has issued a recall for some cars.

An important part of wear leveling and extending the life of flash is to not fill it up! If you need to store 1g of data, buy a 2g card at a minimum. If you need to store 16g of data, buy a 32g card at a minimum. Twice as big at a minimum.

People don't want to buy double the storage they need because they don't want to waste money but they don't know the repercussions of not spending the money.

 

[fla4fun]

Just to clarify . . . You were able to retrieve some photos from the drive before you got the reformat error, or were you downloading from the cloud and the drive was just attached to the computer idle? I am wondering if there was a corruption of one of the photo files and that is triggering the message? I would agree that the first step is to shut down the computer, remove the drive, and reboot the computer. If you have more than one USB port, try it in a different one. I am fortunate that I have a BIL who is a software engineer and untangles these issues for me, but I always try a reboot before I contact him.

 

[GreatLakes]

First and foremost never trust a USB drive as the sole storage location for anything you don't want to lose. They are fine as one of many copies but they are far too volatile to trust long term. The NAND chip that holds the data may be perfectly fine but the constant movement, plugging and unplugging, throwing the drive in a bag, etc all can cause physical failure.

The most common cause of failure is USB connector itself. It doesn't have to totally break for a component inside the connector to fail. At that point without opening the drive and physically fixing it you can't get to the still readable data on the NAND components. Another physical failure is the NAND chip separating from the board.

Good SSD drives and USB thumb drives might both use NAND chips as the storage medium but the other components are just as, if not more, important and a reason why server class SSD drives will cost more per MB than a $30 thumb drive. The wear leveling, bits per cell, block management, and NAND management are just not comparable.

 

[bcla]

Good SSD drives and USB thumb drives might both use NAND chips as the storage medium but the other components are just as, if not more, important and a reason why server class SSD drives will cost more per MB than a $30 thumb drive. The wear leveling, bits per cell, block management, and NAND management are just not comparable.

Sure. I'd still worry far more about physical damage and data corruption than I would about endurance with a USB flash drive. Most people aren't heavy enough users to even come close to dozens of endurance cycles over the lifetime of one. But if it's critical, someone who is handy enough with a soldering iron and can attach a new USB plug to the board can figure out how to get a broken USB port fixed.

I'm kind of disappointed that this wasn't done with an old-style USB-A printer cable, but I guess it worked.

 

[Kennywood]

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Hmm. I use a flash card for my backup... perhaps I should double backup using a physical external hard drive?

 

[Dznypal]

I used to always eject the flash drive by clicking the icon and waiting for it to tell me its safe

for a long time now though Ive just been leaving the drive in the computer--hope thats not what fried it--

weve been going back and forth what could have happened--like my DH is on an F file while mine says D

just hinking since it said if you do the format it could wipe everything out is there any harm in doing the re format and see what happens
thanks

 

[DLgal]

I used to always eject the flash drive by clicking the icon and waiting for it to tell me its safe

for a long time now though Ive just been leaving the drive in the computer--hope thats not what fried it--

weve been going back and forth what could have happened--like my DH is on an F file while mine says D

just hinking since it said if you do the format it could wipe everything out is there any harm in doing the re format and see what happens
thanks

I would just buy an external hard drive, to be honest. They are small and portable nowadays. I mean, you can keep using the flash drives if you want, but this will eventually just happen again. I'd personally not spend any more time trying to figure out what happened. It's just the nature of flash drives for them to fail randomly. Either buy a new one or find another way to backup your files.