General Question

ScottyMcGeester's avatar

USB Drive reads "No Media"?

Asked by ScottyMcGeester (1897points) December 28th, 2018
9 responses
“Great Question” (0points)

I have a USB Drive that I’ve been using for the past year. I was using it yesterday just fine but today I plugged it into my computer and it reads as “No media”. Instead of normally popping up in File Explorer, nothing happens. Under This PC, it reads “Please insert a disk into USB Drive (D:)” I tried plugging it into every USB port. I tried my laptop’s USB ports too.

Disk Management in Windows also labels the USB drive as “No media”. I also checked using Command Prompt – still labels as “No media”.

I followed a YouTube video that said to download ChipGenius to get the manufacturing information about my USB drive. According to ChipGenius it’s made by ChipsBnk, model number CBM2199A – [2017–05-17]

After that, I was supposed to follow a link to download firmware for my ChipsBnk USB Drive. I would normally be wary of videos like these but the comments suggested it was legit and I was desperate. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find CBM2199A at all in their site.

Just my luck.

I don’t know what to do now.

This USB drive was my backup, so it’s not a big deal since I have my original files on my desktop. But I do have some information on this USB drive that I forgot to copy.

Observing members: 0
Composing members: 0

Answers

seawulf575's avatar

Sounds like somehow you erased your USB drive. Sorry, dude. If you were using it yesterday on the same computer and today there is nothing there…sounds like you deleted everything.

ScottyMcGeester's avatar

@seawulf575 How can that be?

I was reading that it could be the USB drive failing if it happens to be cheap. This is the first time I may have bought a cheap USB drive. I bought it due to the novelty of it being a nice-looking key chain. I’ve noticed that it was generally slow to begin with but didn’t think much of it.

Jeruba's avatar

I’m a pretty low-tech person myself and don’t know any answers, but—wouldn’t you first want to be sure your computer can see the USB drive? Try cleaning the contacts with a Qtip and alcohol.

I also believe in alternating backups so you never lose more than what was new at your last save.

seawulf575's avatar

@ScottyMcGeester It could be that the USB drive just broke. I’m not savvy enough to tell you how to fix that…I’m not sure you can. Might want to write it off as a lesson in buying low quality.

LadyMarissa's avatar

Any chance that you just removed the drive without using the “Safely Remove Hardware & Eject Media”??? IF yes, then you may have created a situation where the drive will fail. ALWAYS be sure to eject the drive BEFORE removing it to help & protect the drive itself!!! You might try doing a system restore to the last time the drive worked (yesterday or the day before. Maybe you just lost a necessary driver. I’m just guessing but have been very fortunate using the system restore to fix various problems over the years. :)

Dutchess_lll's avatar

I think he’s talking about a USB stick that you plug in and pull out, not a disk that is ejected.

D drive is for discs. You need to look at your E drive for a USB stick.

LadyMarissa's avatar

I know that Dutch. However, Windows has chosen to call Flash Drives, External Hard Drives, or ANY plug in drive as being ejected. It’s Windows terminology…NOT mine!!! My D: drive is my Recovery drive. For better info on Safely Removing Flash Drives read here

DarknessWithin's avatar

If the USB drive is a year old, it could be that it’s corrupted.

I had one that was 2 or 3 years old that I suddenly couldn’t use the files on, they wouldn’t open, move or delete. Turned out it had corrupted due to age.
My savvy stepdad was able to fiddle with it so that I could get some stuff off it but it was less than half the total content and now it reads as no media as well and that which is still technically there is mincemeat.

I’m afraid I don’t know what he did that allowed me to save what I could I’m not savvy.

I now use a WD My Passport 1TB drive for my backup.

Dutchess_lll's avatar

I use carbonite.

Answer this question

Login

or

Join

to answer.

Mobile | Desktop


Send Feedback   

`