Has anyone ever had a USB flash drive die? Or knows anyone else who's drive died? I got one like more than a year ago, i think, and it died within a few weeks. Since then I've had another one, and it's been fine so far. I just want to know how often it happens that they die because I'm a bit scared of mine dieing randomly on me like the first one did. I sometimes carry things on it that I need at school and I'd be screwed if it randomly died on me then. Secondly, does it matter if I "remove it safely" (you know that thing in WinXP you do where you click at the icon in the taskbar and select "safely remove removable drive soandso"?) or if I just pull it out?
Yeah, one has just died without a reason. Was a Sony MicroVault of 128 MB, another one didn't work just after I bought it. You won't need it, but it is highly recommended to do so. But you can change it. Just go to the hardware properties of the USB drive (device manager), click on the tab Policies, and select Optimize for quick removal. Now you can just pull it out without using that Remove Safely-icon. That changes will be saved on the USB drive itself, so that setting also works on all other computers.
thats what i did when i used XP, & just press Esc to get rid of the BSOD[ot]XP loves making BSOD's, let it make another one (to keep it happy)[/ot]
[ot]Donkey, you got BSOD regularly from that?? what the hell did u do to your poor 'puter?? I don't think i've ever had a BSOD on winxp even once... and certainly not from something as insignificant as this "unsafe" pulling the flash drive thing [/ot]
Hmm that's very interesting. I did as you suggested, and it turns out that it was already set on "optimize for quick removal"! Dang, and I've been doing the "safe" procedure this whole time. Can you explain the mechanics behind these options? What are the differences between the two settings? More precisely, what does the computer actually do with the flash drive when it's set on the other setting -- not "optimize for quick removal" but the "optimize for performance" setting -- that makes it unsafe to just pull it out? It says in the description by the radio button that "this setting enables write caching in Windows to improve disk performance". Whereas the "optimize for quick removal" setting disables write caching. Okay, but what does that mean? What is this write caching and what does it do to the drive? Finally, are you sure that the chosen setting will then apply to any computer the flash drive is used with? I'm having difficulty comprehending how the chosen setting is saved on the flash drive itself... Especially after reading that description about enabling/disabling "write caching", it sounds to me like it's something that Windows controls, not the drive. I think you're wrong on this .
If it is optimized for quick removal, the data is cached on the USB drive. If it is optimized for performance, then the data is cached on the hard drive. If you would then just pull out the drive, not all data might be succesfully saved to that drive. And I think that this setting will automatically be used on all other computers running XP.
Reference: Windows XP Resource Kit: Managing Devices There is heaps written about hotplug devices in there if u r keen to read about it
Haha, nice one Karan. Alright I guess that clears it up. I still don't really know what the whole concept of "write caching" is though... anyone care to delve into that? lol. It's cool if not
well lets put it this way, XP hardly ever lived long enough for the product activation to expire, thats why i never activated or registered it, that's also why i love Kubuntu, cos this build has being alive for about 6 months an still going strong
