Hi

I have a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 2.0 gb thumb drive that I've been using for about a year to back up our office database.

Everything has been working fine and from time to time I've copied back files. All-in-all it has been great. Until today.

I really need to get access to a file on the drive but today I get an error message saying that Windows cannot install the device properly.

One of the things I like about it is that it has password protection on it so carrying our database around in my pocket felt (kind of) secure.

Now I only get a blank drive letter with no folders displayed.

Does anyone know how I can get access to the folders on this drive?

Any ideas gratefully received.

Mick

PS Any recommendations for a small, secure, thumb drive that has password protection?

I have a one gig Kingston Data Traveler. I plugged it into my laptop the other day and got a message that it wasn't formatted and did I want to format it. I then started the desktop and tried it there. No problem, everything was still there. I copied it to the desktop, formatted the little drive and copied the same files back on it. It then worked fine with the laptop. Try another computer before you get desperate.

If it works with another computer, you may have fried your USB port. Try to plug another device (scan, printer etc..) to ensure the port is working well.

And if it doesn't work with another computer, the filesystem is screwed or you fried flash controller inside.

Check how it is shown in Computer Management->Disk Management.

First problem can be probably solved with software data recovery methods (you will have to pull CruzerLock encrypted archive off it somehow);

with fried flash controller the data is usually recoverable, but it needs some hardware stuff.

Check if the light is on when you plug it in. I’ve had two kingston data traveler that worked on some usb ports and not others.

One was from wear and tear and the other had been run over by a car. They’re now in the bin but I managed to drag the data off them first.

I found I had to hold them in position so the light shone before the computer would recognise them. I could then retrieve the data.

You could try to re-install the software that comes with the drive, U3 I believe, download it from the sandisk website. I assume you used that to do the password protection.

For future reference I would recommend uninstalling all 3rd party software from the drive - Sandisk offers a U3 uninstaller on the website as well, which is what I used on my cruzer. That way, the flash drive is just a flash drive and any computer can read it == more data safety.

For protection, I'd create a password-protected writable disk image on the drive. I am on Mac now where that's built-in but there are many 3rd party utilities that can do it on Windows. The advantage is that this is proven technology that works independently of whether its on a flash drive or not, and the password protection is actually safe as opposed to proprietary solutions like U3 which may or may not be safe (most aren't).

PS: The error message and behavior you are getting made me assume that this is a problem with the U3 software - Windows can't load it or something. Therefore I recommend re-installing, you may even get a newer version with bugfixes. You said Windows can see the (empty) drive which kinda indicates the hardware is OK.

Edited March 21, 200818 yr by nikster

I have encountered issues when updating a USB stick on different OSs, in this case Visa Pro and XP Pro.

The Visa OS seems to always offer to "repair" the file structure each time I've added something from another machine, only lost data once when a reformat was required.

Multiple synced backups are the order of the day.