What causes flash drives to be corrupted?

A friend of mine recently bought a new 1 gb flash drive and after 3 weeks it wasn't reading anything. Someone told her that the computer she last took info from was corrupted. Is that possible?What causes flash drives to be corrupted?
yes, it is very much possible. corrupted data on a flash drive is created by not safely ejecting it from your computer. when you (or your friend, in this matter) are ready to take your flash drive out of the computer, simply click the little icon (on the taskbar, near your clock) that looks like a little green arrow over a silver bar once. then, a pop-up bar will appear. it should say: ';safely remove 'USB mass storage device'. click that, and it should then say: 'USB mass storage device can now be safely ejected'. you can now carefully pull your flash drive out of the computer.





however, some brands of flash drive have speacial ways of ejecting. if there is a program that comes up every time you put your flash drive in, odds are, it should be ejected a different way. if you have a flash drive like this: find the icon on your taskbar


that corresponds to your flash drive. click it twice, and the program should come up. search for the 'Eject' icon (much like the 'eject cd' button on your computer itself) and click it once. a message should pop up, and you should be able to safely eject your flash drive.








hope this helps!





~the golden goose~What causes flash drives to be corrupted?
When you've finished using your USB flash drive, it is generally recommended that you should first of all click on the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon that appears in the System Tray in the bottom right of your computer's Task Bar before then unplugging the drive. This makes sure that no programs are continuing to access the drive, and in particular, it makes sure that no programs are in the middle of writing some data to the drive when you unplug it.





With delayed caching functions, you might think you've finished with the USB drive even though the computer still has some pending tasks. If you unplug the drive while the computer is in the middle of updating a file, you'll probably end up with a corrupted file, and perhaps you might end up with an entire corrupted flash drive (due to the index file also being open or not correctly updated).
NO, UR FRIEND MAY NOT BE DOING SAFE REMOVAL.
Yes it is possible.


The biggest cause of corruption however is:





鈫?Virus on the flash drive


鈫?Damage to the drive i.e dropping it


鈫?Removing the flash drive incorrectly





You should always remove the device safely be double clicking the divice icon in the right hand side of the tool bar and chosing the drive to remove.
improperly removing the drive without using the little green utility thing that will usually show up when you plug your flash drive in. If you do not use that you will lose your data, if it does not show up at all, you should take it out after your computer is completely shut down.





If it doesn't get recognized by your computer when you plug it in, you have lost your data and the flash drive does not work.
Shortyxxx is correct, but most likely they aren't removing the flash drive correctly. If all else fails they/you can format the flash drive so it works, but this will destroy everything on it, but it will work correctly, that is if it isn't physically damaged.





You can format it by Opening My Computer, Right clicking on the flash drive that shows up(assuming it does) and choosing format, choose quick format and go.