Why would a USB thumb drive corrupt files ?

I bought a Patriot XT 64GB thumb drive I formatted to NTFS the only formats this drive can format to is exfat and NTFS. I have some avi files that don't play right. Most play fine though. The problem files play fine on the pc but once I xfer them to the stick and try to play them off the stick they get corrupt. Even if xfer the file back to the desktop the file is still corrupt and won't play, I tried xfering the file again to a diff spot on the stick and it will work fine. It seems random. I also do use the eject hardware the button.

What should I do ?

If I do a error checking like scan and attempt scan recovery of bad sectors do you think this could fix my problem ?



Also if I do decide to send it back to the manufacture is that a real pain in the to do ? and what proof of purchase do I need cause I already threw away the packaging. I bought it on newegg by the way.

Just wondering though are larger thumb drives more prone to breaking ?

 

Yes and No. The higher capacity the chip the lower the yields are from each wafer. But its not an automatic fail as each chip is tested before being used or discarded. Most manufacturers guarantee 10,000 writes on the first block which is much less than they are capable of.

Newegg and the companies it carry are usually pretty good on returns I would just talk to them. Patriot while valid isnt the best known in quality either.

As far as the error checking, I dont think the windows scan disk utility is as good at finding bad blocks in flash as it is on physical drives. Hard to say.

 

Yeah, Patriot XT (Rage, correct?) 64GB USB keys are pretty much useless.

Don't RMA - return and get your money back.

There is no fixing this (it is hardware, I'm sure).

Good luck.

 

Same problem here. Tried two Rage Patriot 64GB drives, each from Amazon, both occasionally corrupted files and sometimes corrupted the format (NTFS). Once corruption detected, they failed ChkFlash all read/write tests. Gave up, got refund.

 

The other thing it could be is a fake drive. There have been cases of smaller drives being hacked to appear like they're larger drives, but not actually having the storage space. It's only once you start filling it that it starts corrupting files because it ends up overwriting existing files.

 

I agree with Pitabred. On ebay, There are a lot of thumb drives that says it is 16gb or appears like one, but in reality it only supports around 1gb. After that, all the files you put in would be corrupted.

 

Typecast and Pitabred,

I agree with you about the fakes, but in this case (Patriot RAGE 64GB) the original/official hardware is garbage.

 

Oh. For a $100+ garbage, I would have gotten a passport or something rather than a 64 thumb drive. And considering the high priced garbage you would be getting. 16gb for a thumb drive is enough for me.