Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16GB - 2 out of 3 now dead/failed - HELP!

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1

Hi. I got 3 Sandisk Cruzer Fit 16GB drives, and they’ve been working great for a few weeks. This week however I have had TWO of them fail. No changes to our laptops where they’re used, and I am always choosing the REMOVE HARDWARE options before taking out of USB socket. One PC is Vista and the other is Windows 10.

Findings:

a) Don’t show up in Explorer

b) Show correctly as “Removable W:” in Disk Management program, but have “No Media” shown

c) DiskPart shows this:

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ###    Status              Size      Free  Dyn Gpt
--------            -------------           -------      -------   —      —
Disk 0         Online           465 GB       0 B
Disk 1         No Media            0 B       0 B

I did a quick lookup and various people pointed to a dead controller, so loaded up ChipGenius to see what it said:

Description: [W:]USB Mass Storage Device(SanDisk Cruzer Fit)

Protocal Version: USB 2.10 <- Hint: This device can run faster when plugged to a USB3.0 port
Current Speed: High Speed

USB Device ID: VID = 0781 PID = 5571

Device Revision: 0100

Manufacturer: SanDisk
Product Model: Cruzer Fit
Product Revision: 1.00

Controller Part-Number: Unknown

So, no help there either…

Anyone know a GOOD app (Sandisk or 3rd party) that can bring these back to life?

Thanks! Kev

2

This works.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/5232/~/return-material-authorization-(rma)-process

3

They were bought on sale in a local supermarket for like 8€ each (sealed retail package), so not a lot of money, just very surprised they failed so easily. I’ll look at the RMA  process, but to be honest it will be an hour of two of my life I will never get back for the sake of 16€, so not sure I can be bothered.

Other brands seem to offer repair tools, so I am just surprised that a big firm like SanDisk cannot do something similar. Lots of 3rd parties have made apps to investigate issues, but would be better if the manufacturer provided some tools to help techie users sort out problems, if they are able - even starting with something like a “fake memory” test app - this is protecting their brand, after all!! Oh, and I am pretty sure they are genuine as I ran a “fake memory” test app before I even started using them to check they really were 16GB units. For those unaware, some bad sellers (especially on ebay!) modify 2GB/4GB cards to pretend to be 16GB/32GB units.

If this is a hardware failure due to “shorting” the controller chips (?) when removing/re-inserting (no idea what - bad resistors / capacitors / etc) then surely looking into this would be something to work on too.

Thanks for the reply at least, and I hope this is a limited issue. Now, what to buy next to replace these… :slight_smile:

4

So, I decided to look at RMA process… WOW!!!

Who programmed that then, drunk monkeys?!

a) Drop-down list not sorted alphabetically, so hard to find stuff

b) List re-sets back to the top on *every* selection, so have to keep scrollinig back down after every selection

c) There are Cruzer and Fit options both listed, but not a Cruzer Fit (ie:actual name of the item!)

so, like I said, an hour of my life I will never get back…

5

I’ve just experienced the same thing with 3 SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 16GB that came in the same blister pack. I know I set up one as a Recovery drive and redid it yesterday; I don’t remember if I ever plugged the others in but I think I made a recovery drive for another PC on one of the ones now dead. The two that are dead are not recognised on any of three computers, now all Win 10. The blue LED stays off.

6

Try the drives in pcs that they weren’t made Recovery for.  Some recovery software makes the recovery drive have the same id as the hard drive and Windows(?) won’t accept two drives with the same id.