I have a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 1GB USB flash drive that I bought at BestBuy last November for about $80. The thing worked great. Even though the U3 software that's supposed to let you run programs from the flash drive was kind of annoying at times, the drive had tons of room and always worked flawlessly. I had all kinds of stuff stored on this drive and it was super easy to move files between a home desktop, personal laptop, work laptop, and customer desktop.
Two days ago, the drive died. I put it in one of the USB ports on my H-P laptop at work and the laptop kept acting like the drive was connecting then disconnecting. I tried it in another laptop at work and got the same result. I tried it in various USB ports on my Dell desktop at home and got a different result. Now, the light on the drive comes on for about a second, then goes off. The computer act likes it never sees the drive.
I called SanDisk technical support today. Much to my surprise, I got a live person who seemed to have English as a first language. This guy was very personable and seemed to know what he was talking about. Bottom line, the drive is dead and there's little chance of recovering the data. If anybody has any thoughts on this, I'm all ears. SanDisk is supposed to email me on Monday with an RMA number and a weblink to request a courier pickup. They will replace the drive.
Two takeaways:
1. If you are depending on one of these flash drives, back them up regularly. You never know when it will fail or get misplaced.
2. This is my second SanDisk flash drive. I also have two SanDisk Compact Flash memory cards for my digital cameras and a SanDisk Transflash Micro SD card for my Nextel i870 phone. Except for this failure, I have had nothing but good service from SanDisk products. And if my experience with SanDisk on the replacement of this drive pans out, I will continue to recommend their products.
Bob...
SanDisk flash drive advice
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