WARNING: Sandisk USB 256M Cruzer Mini meltdown, MS Windows XP defrag.

[Bill Hodgson]

Plugged NEW Sandisk 256M USB flash drive "Cruzer mini 256M" into Dell
Inspiron 1100 USB port. Windows XP recognized drive and identified it as
256M (~261M) FAT, and the Cruzer Mini stick's LED was ON.

Before copying anything to the new drive, clicked on "start/All
Programs/Accessories/ System Tools/ Disk Defragmenter". Program seemed to be
stuck at "Analyzing" and with a message in the Analyzing bar that said
something about changing the display color? The "Cruzer mini 256M" LED was
ON but dimmer (seemed to be flashing at a high rate). The program eventually
quit and Windows XP complained about a lost USB drive connection. On finding
the "Cruzer Mini" stick's LED was now OFF, the USB stick was removed from
the USB port. The stick was extremely HOT and the heat had melted the Cruzer
mini 256M's case.

Should there be a warning to NOT use the "Disk Defragmenter" program with
the "Cruzer Mini 256M"?
Has anyone else seen this?

Please do not try this to prove a point. The HOT part will burn flesh!
I suspect that the Flash Memory sticks do not need to be "defragmented"
anyway, especially when brand new :-}.

- Bill

 

[Jim Macklin]

Thanks for the warning, it probably applies to card readers
too.

I'll stick to the format, delete and other similar "safe"
commands.


| Plugged NEW Sandisk 256M USB flash drive "Cruzer mini
256M" into Dell
| Inspiron 1100 USB port. Windows XP recognized drive and
identified it as
| 256M (~261M) FAT, and the Cruzer Mini stick's LED was ON.
|
| Before copying anything to the new drive, clicked on
"start/All
| Programs/Accessories/ System Tools/ Disk Defragmenter".
Program seemed to be
| stuck at "Analyzing" and with a message in the Analyzing
bar that said
| something about changing the display color? The "Cruzer
mini 256M" LED was
| ON but dimmer (seemed to be flashing at a high rate). The
program eventually
| quit and Windows XP complained about a lost USB drive
connection. On finding
| the "Cruzer Mini" stick's LED was now OFF, the USB stick
was removed from
| the USB port. The stick was extremely HOT and the heat had
melted the Cruzer
| mini 256M's case.
|
| Should there be a warning to NOT use the "Disk
Defragmenter" program with
| the "Cruzer Mini 256M"?
| Has anyone else seen this?
|
| Please do not try this to prove a point. The HOT part will
burn flesh!
| I suspect that the Flash Memory sticks do not need to be
"defragmented"
| anyway, especially when brand new :-}.
|
| - Bill
|
|

 

[Bill Hodgson]

Update:
Tried another NEW Cruzer Mini 256M in a desktop PC USB port. Although the
Windows XP recognized it, when a file was copied from my PC to the NEW
DRIVE, the Cruzer Mini 256M seemed to add it and then immediately stopped
working, and the Explorer Window for the NEW DRIVE disappeared.

Windows XP reported a failure of the new drive. The Cruzer Mini 256M's LED
was OFF, so I removed it from the USB port, thinking that the port was
damaged. I installed another USB device (Handspring) and discovered that the
port was still working correctly.

I tried the Cruzer Mini 256M in the other 3 USB ports on my PC and none of
them reported a new USB device.

I'm thinking I received a batch of defective Cruzer Mini 256M's or I've
missed an important step in their operation!
Purchased online from "aaxes.com" a week ago.

- Bill

 

[Guest]

Disk Defrag' is for the management of moving magnetic media and not for static memory devices such a USB sticks, Cameras, Palm Pilots etc

 

[Nick Burns]

It does sound like you got a bad batch, I have use the Mini 256 on all
different system with no problems.

 

[Guest]

Have you gone into "disk management" on the computers and assign a new drive letter to the mini

on some thumb drives, once the first computer assigns a letter to it, if the other computer devices are using that same assigned letter, you will need to change the letter on the thumb for that computer to recognize it

 

[Bill Hodgson]

The Cruzer Mini 256M is no longer activated (LED is OFF on stick). The 2nd
device became warm (higher than normal?) before failing.
Win XP no longer can find the Cruzer, so there is no drive letter to change.
- Bill

Have you gone into "disk management" on the computers and assign a new drive letter to the mini?

on some thumb drives, once the first computer assigns a letter to it, if

the other computer devices are using that same assigned letter, you will
need to change the letter on the thumb for that computer to recognize it.