If you are really technical and want to go futher a great place to start at is Jan Axelson's Lakeview Research

General USB related news is at everything usb

Again really technical but the place of standards the USB organisation

A USB site with most everthing you could need the USB man

Need to get some data that's been lost on your key, or your key stops working and you need to get your data back try Apex Technology




How do I format my USB drive.

Is my USB stick broken.

Does a USB stick last for ever.

My new USB 2.0 device is no quicker than my old device.

My stick is broken can I get the data back.

Spilt coffee on my USB stick is it broken.

Is my connection a USB1.1 or USB2.0.

How does a USB storage device work.

How do I format my USB drive.
First of all why do you want to, there is no real need to reformat a USB drive. It based on flash memory technology so there are no tracks as such to refresh. If you want to simply ensure that the contents are erased then it would be better to use an erasing tool such as Restoration. If you insist on reformatting then its preferable to go with the manufacturers supplied software. Simply using the windows formatting facility is not good enough. There is the well used utility from HP that is reported to work on many devices so this may be worth a try.

Is my USB stick broken.
After trying the device in another machine it looks like you are stuck. However if you don't have another machine or are confident enough to try some diagnostics software then USB sniffer website has a software utility that reads the bits and bytes that flow along the USB bus from PC to device. With this you can at least see if the device is communicating and the USB port is working correctly.

Does a USB stick last for ever
No, the components used to build these devices have a limited number of read/write cycles. This is in the region of 100,000 cycles, but if you use your device everyday and are constantly reading/writing to the device be aware.

My new USB 2.0 device is no quicker than my old device
Various designs have differing speeds based on the components used and how they are put together. In general USB 2.0 devices should be quicker BUT they will not run any faster if they are plugged into a USB1.0 specification port or hub. Check all the links in the chain are compatible. If you plug a USB2.0 into a USB1.1 port then Windows should report that the device is pougged into a low speed port and could work faster in a different port.

My stick is broken can I get the data back
Very unlikely, and data recovery is an expensive business. If you could get an identical device maybe a skilled repair tech could swap components to get it working. But like any technology it is dangerous to rely on a single data source to store your data. Use an automatic back-up software package so you should always be able to get to your data.

Spilt coffee on my USB stick is it broken.
As there is generally no active power source in a simple USB stick, if the device is left to dry out in a warm place, such as on a radiator, the likelihood is it will work in your PC. If your device is powered such as an MP3 player, take out the batteries first and expect to just recover your data. It may be fully functional but remember if getting wet caused something to short circuit and you plug it into your PC that could supply up to 2.5 Amps, it could cause some damage.

Is my connection a USB1.1 or USB2.0.
Launch Device Manager from Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager button and check the Universal Serial Bus entries normally at the bottom of the list. If there is an entry for Enhanced USB host controller you have a USB2.0 compliant system. Remember though that some of you're ports may still be USB1.1 so it's better to test by copying a large file and timing the performance . Some front panel ports for instance if an additional hub has been installed.

How does a USB storage device work.
Windows recognises the fact that a device is present in the USB port through the functionality of several device drivers. Inside the USB device itself an interface chip handles the communications with the driver and controls how the data is stored and retrieved from memory. The memory chips are generally NAND flash technology and have a serial data connection to the interface chip.
USB interface and control chips are manufactured by companies such as Philips, Atmel and Freescale (Motorola) containing their own software implemented by USB device manufacturers of whom there are many, particularly in the far east. This explains why repair of a device would be difficult. A simplified block diagram shows how a typical system is structured.

USB explaination