I hope this isn't too far off topic for this forum ....

I have a Lexar 1GB Jump Drive that suddenly stopped working. And it was sudden. It has never had a problem, I was using it all morning, stopped it and removed it from a PC, plugged it into a laptop and it just doesn't show up. The green light doesn't come on. And I can not get it to read in any computer.

No warning, deterioriation of its service, anything. Has anyone come up with anything on this? I mean I didn't spend much on it ($80?) but I'd hate to have to trash it.

Thanks!!

Any chance that the contacts (in the computer or on the drive itself) are dirty? I also have a 1 GB Lexar Jump Drive and occasionally I have to wiggle the device in the slot to get it to connect. Have you tried it on another computer?

Hello! I wiggled it around and no luck. And this occurs on any computer, laptop or desktop, that I try. I have never found that I had to wiggle the connection before, and it is odd that this occurred so suddenly! (Rather than what I would have expected, slow degraing performance. It was working perfectly before suddenly stopping. Any ideas?

Thanks for your help!

It's possible that you broke one of the four pins attaching the connector to the tiny circuit board. It's not an uncommon failure, especially if you're less than gentle with the thing over a prolonged period.

This is a fundamental problem I have with these drives - I actually don't use them all that much anymore, but when I did I went through four or five of them over two years. They just aren't physically robust enough. The one in my laptop right now is in three pieces - two halves of the shell and the circuit board/USB plug - it actually still works, but I wonder for how long.

I there a ruggedized version anywhere?

Seems to be several.

SanDisk 1024MB Cruzer Titanium

And a waterproof one from Merlin

SanDisk has also introduced a waterproof OEM module...

My jumpdrive stopped being recognized by my computer or it wouldn't let me access the files (kept asking me to reformat it). After googling and long search I found out that these drives fail quite often. Internally the connections can break which causes the failure. One solution which worked for me and allowed me to access my info can be found here

http://www.everythingusb.com/hardwar...er_reviews.htm

Look at info on squeezing the drive to get it to work.

I got Lexar to offer to replace the drive but I need to send it in.

If yours is less than a year old they should offer to replace it.

Hope this helps.
Jennifer

I never use any of these flash drives. I prefer to use flash media and a media reader/writer. Another thing to carry but at least everything is on a media that I can use on another reader or connect to my laptop with a PCcard.

The nice jumpdrives/thumbdrives/keychaindrives etc are not exactly built to mil specs. I buy and always carry two (they are cheap) and copy all new info to both, ie thus I always have a backup. FWIW the Sandisk drives seem to be better, at least none have stopped working for me.......as of yesterday

MisterNice

Waterproof I don't really need, but that Titanium might be what I'm looking for. I usually have problems with the physical connection between the USB socket and the body, but if they've gone to that extent to beef up the body, perhaps the connections are equally rugged. I might have to give it a try.

Thanks
====

A little more research - a retractable USB interface - congrats to the engineers.

http://www.techreviewer.com/viewpage...i/050323120106

"This thumbdrive seems to have finally addressed one of the biggest remaining problems concerning thumbdrives- extreme durability. This thing survived everything we tried, including stepping on it, dropping it literally hundreds of times, clamping it in a vise, and running it over with a 3000lb car, with only minor case deformation. This should allow users to finally stop worrying about whether their data will survive falling out of a window 10 stories high, for instance."

And 512MB for $35 after rebate - http://www.buy.com/retail/searchresu...search_store=1

(The cheapest I found the 1GB is $90).

One's on the way to me.....

The Lexar Jump Drive is actually more rugged than previous models. I had (well, still have) a Sony 32 MB USB thumbdrive that now separates into three pieces (electronic guts and two parts of the case) at will. The electronics still work, though. My Jump Drive has a rubber bumper around the edge and looks to be more solid than its Sony predecessor. I have it in my pocket all the time, which is probably why the Sony went south on me.

I had a Lexar 512 die on me between MLA and ATL. It was a disaster. I tried everything. Tech Support at Lexar was useless.

I wish I could give you repair advice. Now I travel with my other Lexar 1GB AND a zip disk as back up.

Also, I use a Gmail account as a back up where I email mission critical files before traveling. Gmail stores 1 Gig for free.

What direction is everyone squeezing the drive to get it to work? On the thin side or wide? I tried that though with bare hands not much give. Also tried jiggling it, etc. no luck. That's not too important, nothing critical on it, but I was curious.

I found my online receipt from its purchase (Dec 2004), I am going to try and contact Lexar and see about getting a replacement. We will see how well that goes!!

Actually, its over 2.2Gb as of today (and growing)

The flash memory used in these drives does have a finite number of read and write cycles.

If you are a heavy user, you might have finally reached that limit and the flash memory cells are now inoperative.