Good USB memory stick gives i/o error

[Randy Brook]

Windows XP Pro on a Panasonic Toughbook laptop.
Sandisk Titanium Cruzer 4gb stick.

Until very recently, this USB stick worked fine. Now when I plug it
in, I get an Explorer window showing the U3 files but cannot run them.
I also see the rest of the stick as a drive, but the blue light on the
stick flashes slowly and eventually, instead of reading the contents
of the stick, I get a Windows message saying:

"J:\ is not accessible. The request could not be performed becaus of
an I/O device error.".

The memory stick works fine on one desktop but has the same problem on
another. In Disk Management, I see the USB stick as having a Fat32
Healthy (unknown partition" with the correct size. But in the graphic
below, it appears as a CD-Rom.

I did copy a Picasa gift CD to a folder on the stick recently. I
wonder if there could be some conflict created by that folder. Maybe
something with cdrom autorun, although I didn't think I even had
autorun set up on my machines.

 

[Randy Brook]

Following up on my own idea below, I disabled CDROM autorun in the
Registry. Now I can get as far as seeing the root directory of the USB
stick. If I try to open any file or subfolder, I get the i/o error.

The USB stick appears the same in Disk Management as described below.
I can do a shutdown - safely remove hardware on the stick without any
problem once I close the i/o error message window.

 

[Randy Brook]

More clues: If I run Windows in Safe Mode, the memory stick works
fine. In Disk Management, instead of showing up with no drive letter
and Layout blank, it has a drive letter, Layout=Partition, and in the
graphic below that it shows as a Removable disk, not a cdrom.

The U3 partition still shows up in Disk Management as a CDROM with a
CDFS file system.

 

[smlunatick]

More clues: If I run Windows in Safe Mode, the memory stick works
fine. In Disk Management, instead of showing up with no drive letter
and Layout blank, it has a drive letter, Layout=Partition, and in the
graphic below that  it shows as a Removable disk, not a cdrom.

The U3 partition still  shows up in Disk Management as a CDROM with a
CDFS file system.

The U3 "applet" might be damaged. Not sure if the "installed" U3
module or the one on the U3 drive. You might want to try to uninstall
the U3 on the XP and then re-install it.

 

[Randy Brook]

I don't know of any U3 applet on either Windows XP machine. I've never
used U3 at all. It's only on the stick.

 

[smlunatick]

I don't know of any U3 applet on either Windows XP machine. I've never
used U3 at all. It's only on the stick.

Part of the U3 "system," sometimes a small U3 module might get
installed on the XP PC. It is part of the U3 system. For more help,
www.u3.com

 

[Randy Brook]

I checked out the U3 website. It sent me to an MS Knowledge Base
article about disabling CDROM autorun in the Windows registry. This
will prevent the U3 applet from running automatically. I had already
done that and it hasn't helped.

Still, I think you're right that there must be something running on my
machine that's causing the problem, since I don't have the problem if
I run in Safe Mode. But what can it be???

 

[Ian D]

Windows XP Pro on a Panasonic Toughbook laptop.
Sandisk Titanium Cruzer 4gb stick.

Until very recently, this USB stick worked fine. Now when I plug it
in, I get an Explorer window showing the U3 files but cannot run them.
I also see the rest of the stick as a drive, but the blue light on the
stick flashes slowly and eventually, instead of reading the contents
of the stick, I get a Windows message saying:

"J:\ is not accessible. The request could not be performed becaus of
an I/O device error.".

The memory stick works fine on one desktop but has the same problem on
another. In Disk Management, I see the USB stick as having a Fat32
Healthy (unknown partition" with the correct size. But in the graphic
below, it appears as a CD-Rom.

I did copy a Picasa gift CD to a folder on the stick recently. I
wonder if there could be some conflict created by that folder. Maybe
something with cdrom autorun, although I didn't think I even had
autorun set up on my machines.

The first thing I do with a new Sandisk Cruzer, is remove the U3
partition. The Sandisk site has a tool called launchpadremover.exe
for removing U3 from the Titanium. You can then do a reformat.
I just do a quick format. If I want to secure files on a USB drive I
use Truecrypt.

 

[Randy Brook]

I think you are probably right about reformatting and removing U3.
It's just aggravating to do it when it's been working fine the way it
is for at least a year. It's also annoying to see it work in Safe Mode
and not know why it won't in regular Windows boot.

By the way, I have been using Truecrypt on the Cruzer from day 1. I
just didn't bother to remove U3. I guess that I imagined "some day" I
might want it.

 

[Randy Brook]

I gave up. I booted in Safe Mode and ran the onboard U3 utility to
backup the memory stick, uninstall U3, reformat, and restore from the
backup. It all worked fine. Now my memory stick works everywhere
normally.