Memory Stick Problems?

[Jack Guinea]

I got a memory stick off ebay for coursework and ive copied loads of my stuff over onto it but every time i open it it says that the content needs repairing or that it cant open it because of repair problems, is it the memory stick or is it because i have a newer version of word and powerpoint?

 

[Wozza63]

try saving the file as a .doc rather than .docx

If that doesnt work, then you have probably got a dodgy memory stick, its very common these days, and most cheap memory sticks will give you problems

 

[Bsrz]

+1 on what wozza said probably a dodge memory stick - I have had my sony memory stick for 4 years and its still working lol although I have now upgraded to a 500gb external hdd for college work.

 

[Jack Guinea]

Thanks guys, ill try re saving my work tomorrow and see if that helps, hopefully its not the memory stick because ive only had it a week.

 

[ubuysa]

The message means that the stick has been removed from a PC at some time without being stopped first (via Safely Remove Hardware). If you tell Windows to check it the message will not display again. Any data on there will not be harmed (unless there really is a problem with the stick).

It's good practice to always stop USB devices before removing them even though you can often get away with not doing so.

 

[steaky360]

For info, you don't HAVE to safely unplug USB devices, you can make it easy NOT to.
To stop having to safely unplug all your USB devices:
1. Plug your USB drive into your PC, then open Device Manager.
2. Expand Disk Drives, then find the entry for your removable drive. On my system, for example, it's called "USB2.0 Flash Disk USB Device."
3. Right-click that entry, then click Properties.
4. Click the Policies tab.
5. If the first option, Quick removal, is already selected, you're good to go. If Better performance is selected, switch to Quick removal and click OK.

 

[ubuysa]

For info, you don't HAVE to safely unplug USB devices, you can make it easy NOT to.
To stop having to safely unplug all your USB devices:
1. Plug your USB drive into your PC, then open Device Manager.
2. Expand Disk Drives, then find the entry for your removable drive. On my system, for example, it's called "USB2.0 Flash Disk USB Device."
3. Right-click that entry, then click Properties.
4. Click the Policies tab.
5. If the first option, Quick removal, is already selected, you're good to go. If Better performance is selected, switch to Quick removal and click OK.

Indeed. Quick Removal turns off write caching for the device which does reduce performance (though you'd probably not notice the difference). Best Performance turns on write caching which offers the best performance (duh!) but since Windows then delays the write, if you pull out the USB device before the cache is flushed you may loose data.

I would still suggest that it's good practice to get into the habit of stopping USB devices (that you have written to) before removing them. It doesn't take a lot of time and your data is invaluable after all