corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

[kc8adu]

well here we go again.
this is the updated redesigned model too.
these things are nothing but trouble!.
sad when sams club cheapies that are 4 years old and subject to heavy use are still fine but this 125.00 unit is too shakey to trust for work.
these are advertised as being indestructable.they are potted in rubber.
no good even after a redesign.

[Gariarto]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

I'm surprised ! Bad luck or bad something you're plugging it into perhaps ? I've got a couple of these in everyday use and had no problems so far. They are plugged in and out of all manner of PCs and get some pretty rough usage. I just bought their USB 3.0 series too. On the other hand I DID just send back 2 of their "reliable' 650W PSUs which let out the magic smoke.

Other flash drives I use are "Patriot Memory" which are also rubber cased. Equally reliable for me so far.
Get this ! When I first bought a 16gb Patriot Xporter XT it went missing for a few days. Much lamenting over $60 gone "in a flash" !! Ha ha ! Ahem, anyway, One morning I saw a little bit of bright red poking out of a frozen dirt puddle on the driveway. It was the flash drive. Must've fallen out of my pocket going for my keys. After digging out with a screwdriver it was bent like a banana and the connector was flattened, Darn ! Repeatedly driven over by my Expedition ! Dead for sure right !?
With little hope I disassembled it, washed the parts and left them to dry. The PCB "looked" OK, just bent. Two days later I eased the connector back into some sort of shape and plugged it into my wifes' PC. Not mine ! Well I'll be.. It worked just fine and I still have it and use it today. Can you beat that !

[popeye]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

I have a corair 4gig that I have had for years it is used daily and has never let me down.

[Gariarto]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

Since we're on the subject of flash drives, that reminds me...

After reading and commenting on kc8adu's post it reminded me of a busted flash drive I put aside months ago on my 'for attn' shelf. I wonder if any of you gents could shed some light on the problem.

I used this ADATA 16gb for over a year when one day it failed to be initialized in a customer's older PC. Then back at the office it was the same on all my PC's.
Windows would 'see' it but not mount it as a drive. Curiosity had me open it up and sure enough a component looks like it burned off the board. I think the silkscreen said L1 but I'm not sure what it was and if I could replace it to get this working again. There's some stuff on there I'd REALLY like back. From this not so good picture can anyone tell me what went bang please ? The picture isn't the greatest but that's the best I got out of repeated tries.

[ratdude747]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

I once found a 1gb Aluminum giveaway drive in a patch of dirt. After cleaning it and straightening/derusting the plug, it fired right up. I reckon somebody lost it on a rainy day and it sat for a couple weeks.

I no longer have the drive; a classmate had one go south on her and I had no use for the drive.

[gerg]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

I have a 32 gb patriot that has been through the wash twice....... still works I had a buffalo jump drive that the usb part snapped off when i pulled it out of the laptop i was working on. It was not that old and I had not abused it.

[goontron]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

i had a 32gb PNY go through ,fire, wash, drop from a 3rd floor window, a PSU failing which killed a motherbord and a reversed USB port but it was a tad bit abused it had xubuntu installed on it which some could say is abuse and well im typing this on it right now.
so if you want a GOOD usb flash than you want to get PNY'S.

[Uranium-235]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

this is why I say find a good, decently small sized SDHC card reader. Spare the memory, damage the reader. Buy a new one

also, with read-only switches on sd cards you have less chance of viruses if you want to use one as an A/V stick

[lti]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

so if you want a GOOD usb flash than you want to get PNY'S.

Their newer drives suck. The case is so large that it blocks nearby USB connectors (or other connectors placed near the USB ports), and the USB plug doesn't stick out of the case far enough to work in some computers. On older Dell computers that had the USB ports pointing toward the floor, you have to force the drive into the USB port and hold it there while the drive is being used. If you let go, the computer thinks the drive was disconnected. The drives with the old case design are good if you can find them. I have been using a 512MB PNY drive for years. I bought a 4GB PNY drive as an upgrade, and it was unusable due to the case design. It also didn't work in one of my computers at all. A second identical drive worked in that computer, but it didn't work in another one of my computers. In both cases, the drives were detected as an unknown device and placed in the "USB controllers" section of Device Manager.

[momaka]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

64 GB is too big for me so I don't have use for such a large drive yet. Also, granted that some of my computers still use USB v1.1, I can't imagine putting big files on there. It will take at least forever (I have actually transferred movies on a flash drive with USB 1.1 speeds several times... and yep, it does takes forever). And even USB 2.0 isn't that fast, so I still avoid putting large files when I can.
Not to mention that 64 GB is a lot of data to loose if you loose or break the flash drive. I rather keep my data split in multiple flash drives.

I think the silkscreen said L1 but I'm not sure what it was and if I could replace it to get this working again. There's some stuff on there I'd REALLY like back. From this not so good picture can anyone tell me what went bang please ? The picture isn't the greatest but that's the best I got out of repeated tries.

The L in L1 indicates that was an inductor. If this is indeed what it was, then you can actually try bridging it with a piece of thin wire. I can't say what it was for sure, though. A better picture really is needed. Try enabling macro mode on your camera. If the picture still doesn't look any better, try a cell phone camera with a magnifying lens in front of it (I've had lots of success with this method). Also, try cleaning up the burn marks on the PCB before taking the pictures.

On older Dell computers that had the USB ports pointing toward the floor, you have to force the drive into the USB port and hold it there while the drive is being used. If you let go, the computer thinks the drive was disconnected.

You must have had loose or broken USB ports, then. I've never had any trouble with these ports, other than being PITA to find where to insert the flash drive every time. The USB ports on those computers do break easily, though - mostly because people can't find the USB port, then get pissed and start pushing until "something" happens.

[Gariarto]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

Thanks for the feedback Momaka, I'll try the bridge this evening. Believe it or not the camera WAS in macro mode. When I first bought the thing 3 yrs ago it would take amazing close-ups but now they end up grainy. Perhaps its a lighting thing. You know, I wanted to clean more of the scorching off that pcb but its so well attached I thought it would damage the print underneath too.
G.

[lti]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

You must have had loose or broken USB ports, then. I've never had any trouble with these ports, other than being PITA to find where to insert the flash drive every time. The USB ports on those computers do break easily, though - mostly because people can't find the USB port, then get pissed and start pushing until "something" happens.

I never had a problem with any other device connected to that computer's front USB ports.

[Gariarto]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

Flash drive stayed dead. Never mind, it was worth a try. Thanks for the suggestion.

[momaka]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

Flash drive stayed dead. Never mind, it was worth a try. Thanks for the suggestion.

Do the chips run hot? If not, check that the resistors next to them aren't open-circuited or that any of the ceramic capacitors aren't short-circuited.

[Gariarto]

Re: corsair flash voyager 64gb fail number 3!

These darned components are smaller than a pinhead !! I spent a couple of hours testing and messing around with it until my eyes couldn't take any more. Even with a big lit magnifier I have, the smallest soldering iron tip I have looks like trying to pick your nose with a 2x4 !! Also looks like there's another empty SMT pad pair that look like they had a component there. Dammit !

I think I'm putting this one down to experience. I also tried finding the same model online to perhaps switch out the memory chips but its waaay out of production. What I really need is to Backup !! Right ?!

Thanks again for all your input, greatly appreciated !