I have a Corsair 8 GB Flash Voyager that I bought last year. It is primarily used for storing music. I keep it permanently plugged in my car HU (Clarion DXZ 785 USB). Once in a 2-3 weeks, I take it out to load new music and replace old folders. Of course, I unplug it only when the system is shut down, to prevent any loss of data.



My entire music collection is stored on my laptop. This is the Master Backup.



Today I faced a strange problem. I transferred some new music folders to the flash drive but when I plugged it in the car, it threw an "Error 2" and no music could be played. I unplugged it and tried to view the contents in my laptop.



The basic view shows all folders intact. However, when I open any of the folders, the files appear to have strange letters/symbols, and not mp3s. Please see the attached screen shots for reference. Many folders have no mp3 files in them! Basically I sense that the flash disk is corrupt. But when I did a disk check, no errors or bad sectors were detected.



I will format it and see what happens. But is this something serious? Do I need to get the drive replaced?

Originally Posted by Striker10

Yep its gone. Same thing happened with my PNY attache 1gb drive... get it replaced asap..

Originally Posted by Party Monger

Format it and see, It could be just a File system corruption..



Format a few times, and copy and test the data for consistency..

Originally Posted by TECH HUNTER

use low level format tool.

HP is also offering similar format tool.

try them.

Thanks for the comments guys. I formatted it using the in-built Windows XP formatting tool. Now it seems to work fine. I also checked the disk for errors/bad sectors and happily, none were reported.

Originally Posted by nucleuskore

Now before you format, you can try repairing the filesystem if you want to recover the songs.



Start->Run->cmd



chkdsk F: /r /v



as I can see from the screenshots that your pendrive is F:



If you are going to format your drive, then

1. Format

2. Copy songs

3. Defragment

Hmm, so a defrag is recommended AFTER loading the songs? Shall try that today.