USB flash drive Hangs everything

madfools

New Member
Alrighty, this one might be interesting to some people. I've dealt with USB drives (I'll just call them USBs for now on) before and I know my way around most issues. This one, I've got no clue. Recently I bought a nice, pricey USB 3.0. I through some documents on there at first (personal stuff) and then started installing linux to it so I could have an OS on the go. Mint installed fine, but then didn't work properly so I reinstalled it with lubuntu. Now here's where things went down hill. Computer freezes part way through installation. I cancel out and know that I will have to just reformat the drive and start again (I used the "linux universal usb creator" so I wouldn't have to burn the iso to a disk). Now you know the story behind the usb. Here's how it behaves:

1. If it's plugged in during boot, no other usb device will register (as in, the keyboard, mouse, etc won't turn on). So it has to be unplugged during boot, then plugged back in.
2. Right clicking on it when in windows causes explorer to crash. In fact, any action that would show its information causes explorer to crash (such as loading device manager while it's plugged in).

At this point I realized it was a corrupted file system. Only way I know how to fix that is running "chkdsk /f I:" (where I: is the drive). However, this just hangs I believe as nothing happens at all. I try just formatting over the drive using diskpart; however, diskpart hangs while turning on if the usb is still plugged in. Unplugging it lets it fully load, then plugging it back in register's the device. But any consequent actions just hangs as well. I have even tried:

(a) Loading up a lubuntu install disk I finally made and trying to overwrite/format from that (doesn't work)
(b) Loading up windows 7 repair disk, opening up console and running chkdsk and diskpart from there (same issues as above)
(c) Trying everything from my Windows 8 computer (no difference)

I'm pretty stumped. Don't really want to toss this device, but can't really figure it out (NOT sending it back for RMA because of the stuff I already put on it...).

So, I was wondering if anyone was up to the challenge? Oh! And I don't believe there's a driver for it. It's an ADATA UE700/64GB
 

pur300

New Member
Have you tried your usb on another computer? What filesystem do you use for your usb?
You should try to use computer with linux installed and try fsck command.
 

madfools

New Member
I tried and it didn't work. Tell you the truth, I did just about everything I could (and it was awhile before anyone replied) that I declared it a brick and chucked it. Wish I didn't have to but I threw it on windows 7, windows 8 and lubuntu and nothing worked (chdsk and fsk... if i spelled those right). Ah well... thanks for the response anyways. I feel like I should have kept it though as I'm curious what could brick a flash drive beyond repair...
 

Random Elephant

New Member
Well hello there. I know this thread is long dead, but I just have to try.
I happened to get this exact flash drive as a Christmas present this year, and I get the very same results as described above after an installation of PortableApps froze mid-process. That was basically the only thing I did. I plugged the USB, started the installation of PortableApps, went on with my things, and then I returned to a completely frozen installation, with explorer being frozen aswell. I tried shutting down the explorer process, but it just hanged, being unresponsive even to killing it. Same with the installation process, if I tried killing it, it didn't even shut down, and the taskmgr froze aswell. Then everything else happens to be as described already. Can't format the drive, everything that tries to get information freezes, including device manager and other stuff.
Just wanted to add my experience, as this is quite a bugging and interesting problem.
I'm gonna get a new one I guess. It's still under warranty and I might not be that savvy to actually determine the issue, but I still wanted to share this. :)

Edit: The issue is actually not that bad. I can sometimes access files on the drive, and I can actually display the info. If I try to format though, I get the "you do not have sufficient rights to perform this operation" message, even with administrator rights. When plugged in, it wants to perform check disk on it, which hangs if started. All the other services, ex.: Disk manager, fail to load if the device is plugged in.
 
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Agent Smith

Well-Known Member
I happened to get this exact flash drive as a Christmas present this year


What exact flash drive? No model was specified by the original poster. Just the fact it was some USB 3.0 USB drive.

You want Adata for a USB flash drive. They all carry a lifetime warranty. You just have to register it at their website.
 
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