Flash Drives

Thumb drives are the rage, they replace those unreliable floppies that after you've had them for awhile seem to be empty or your computer tells you they need formatted, but you know they don't. Yes the new flash or thumb drives are great and hold so much information. I have a one Gig drive that I carry in my pocket with much needed repair software on it. I have been carrying it for about 4 months now, but a few days ago I plugged into the USB port and wala ! A window pops up telling me to insert the disk, I pulled it out and reinserted, no dice, nothing, the disk was crashed. I tried to format it with Windows and it reported it could not. A look on the manufacture's Web site gave me lots of hints, but I'm sorry to say none worked. I found a phone number and after talking to Gandhi in Bombay for a few minutes I was told to download a formatting utility. I did the quick install and ran the program. After a few seconds it was done, I looked at the properties and low in behold I now have a two gig thumb drive. Don't ask, because I do not have a clue why. The moral is don't count on your thumb drive to keep information for long periods of time. They crash just like the hard drive inside your computer. Keep a back-up because it is not if, its when........ back it up !