Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On 18 Jun 2009 13:06:23 GMT, Jim Yanik wrote:


it's possible the controller IC has failed.
I have an Attache flash drive with a transparent case,you can see two large
ICs;one is the memory IC and one the controller.


Actually, there's another possibility. It might be a counterfeit
flash drive.
http://reviews.ebay.com/BEWARE-of-FAKE-16GB-32GB-64GB-USB-Flash-Drives-on-eBay_W0QQugidZ10000000001236200
In the past, I've run into various flash drives and camera cards that
were counterfeit. They didn't last. A few were dead on arrival.
Looks like the Sandisk Cruzer drive is a candidate:
http://reviews.ebay.com/FAKE-SanDisk-Cruzer-USB-Flash-Drives-Exposed_W0QQugidZ10000000001236054

Topic drift: I've been testing the speed of flash drives with
FDBench. It works but isn't really very useful. Most of the hard
disk benchmark utilities don't seem to recognize a flash drive as a
hard disk. Is there a Windoze program for benchmarking flash drives?


Well, I remember having lots of options in SisSoft's 'Sandra'; just checked on
the Web and indeed it has flash drive benchmarks. It's big, but even as
paranoid as I am, I found that it doesn't muck up the system and is pretty
open and transparent during and after installation.

Michael