Re: Flash drives destroyed?

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Sat, 25 Dec 2021 13:37:58 -0500, Paul
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On 12/25/2021 10:20 AM, micky wrote:
>> In alt.comp.hardware, on Sat, 25 Dec 2021 09:59:08 -0500, micky
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>>> Flash drives destroyed?
>> 
>> I finally got the MP3 player to come alive, but question 1 below is
>> still pending:
>> 
>>> 1) I was making a Macrium rescue USB from a new USB and it didn't work
>>> the first time. I think it didn't finish.  So I ran it again and it
>>> finished acc. to the PC, but it would no longer show a file list.
>>> Windows sees me plug it in but Properties says the amount of free space
>>> is zero and the amount of used space is zero.   Is it unusual for a new
>>> usb drive to fail like this?

Discussed with Kirk in later posts. 

>>> 2) Then yesterday I was trying to get an MP3 player to play through the
>>> AUX port of my car radio.  The album cover showed in the screen and the
>>> play clock was ticking away, but no sound was coming out of the radio**,
>>> except a little click when I unplugged the MP3 player.
>> .....
>>> Only the one song that came with it new.  Now today, plugging it in
>>> doesn't display anything on the screen about its charging or
>>> transferring, and pushing the On button does nothing even though it was
>>> fully charged yesterdaay and I was careful to turn it off.
>>>   Is this kind of failure unusual?
>>>   It's AGPTek.  Is that a brand to avoid?
>> 
>> I guess it didn't fail completely, but I plugged it in two cables a
>> total of 4 times and the screen never showed messages like it did two
>> days ago.   And I pressed On a half dozen times with nothing happening.
>> Finally I held it down 10 seconds, but it used to take one second

And FTR it was fully charged just a few days ago, but it's working now
so no more discussion of this part is needed. 

>> I still need help with this:
>>> **This is the 2nd mp3 player that seems to play based on the screen but
>>> no sound comes out of the radio. It's possible there is a problem with
>>> the Carkit attachment to the radio, but is there some way to plug an MP3
>>> player into the mike jack of a PC and see if it plays there.  AFAICt,
>>> you need special software like Voicemeeter?

I realized the table radio, Sangrean, that I bought a couple years ago,
has an AUX input, and connecting either MP3 player to that got the sound
to come out just fine. 

So the natural conclusion is that I didn't plug in the CARKit device,
but a) I remember doing so and b) it makes that click when I pull the
plug out of the MP3 player.   So it must be connected and maybe the
CARKit is defective, but I have to disassemble part of the car's console
to get at it.  It's cold out, most  of the time.  Next  spring.   I
think the warranty is expired, but maybe they'll believe me that that
part never worked. (I wasted time looking for another cable, etc, buying
an adapter, looking for the MP3 playsers.)

>An MP3 player that offers an analog output, that cable should work
>in any 1/8" jack, including the PC jack. 

Have you actually tried this in a PC mike jack?  AIUI, I've read that
microphone input to a PC is onoly useful if there is a program running
that can receive it and do something with hit . 

Anyhow, when I tried it, even though the digital meter in Sounds /
Recording for the plug-in mike goes up and down when the MP3 player is
playing, no sound comes out of the speakers!  I think this is normal. 

>The amplitude is probably 1V RMS,
>which is "Line In" level.
>
>Lithium batteries come in a couple types. LiCo has slightly fewer charge
>cycles than LiFePO4 (iron phosphate), but LiCo hold twice as many WattHours.
>The iron phosphate batteries are slightly more resistant to overcharge, which
>is why they are used in backyard solar-powered lights. The battery charges during
>the day, and the charging circuit lacks sophistication and the battery in the
>thing "has to eat it". They can theoretically be charged 6000-7000 times
>with a proper charger (Tesla Model 3 in China use iron phosphate, and apparently
>models in the US will receive these too at some point - the car will lack a little
>acceleration if iron phosphate is used in the car).
>
>If the device was old enough to use Nickel Cadmium, it would have spewed
>electrolyte all over the place while aging, and the corrosion would
>ruin the electronics. For example, in pinball machines, the high score
>used to be stored with nickel cadmium cells for power, and when the
>cells leaked, the pinball main board would get damaged. And hobbyists
>repairing these, have lots of fun repairing such damage. The reason NiCd
>spew like that, is there is no intelligent charger to charge them. Li has
>an intelligent charger.
>
>They make various USB volts/amps meters for in-line measurement
>of USB. You can use that to check your MP3 player while it is charging,
>and see if the current draw is consistent with charging at C/2 or C/10
>(fast charge or slow charge). Looking at the photographs of these
>will tell you whether the firmware was ever finished in development.
>I don't think I'd buy this one, but continue looking for a similar one.
>
>https://www.amazon.ca/USB-Meter-Tester-Voltage-Current-Battery-Power-Multimeter-Tester-Resistance/dp/B07D36ZW7Q

I've got one of those!!  Except mine is several years old, doens't have
bluetooth, color display, who knows what else. 
>
>You don't need a lot of silly functions in those, like Milliwatts.
>USB2 can source 5V @ 500mA and such a little meter can tell you
>whether the downstream device is in-bounds for a high power device.
>The 100mA level is for low power devices. Like my mouse used to report
>it draws "98mA". Since the config table is in units of 2mA, they tried
>to make it "one step less than the low power limit". And the mouse
>doesn't actually draw 98mA and that is purely a class indicator. It
>means my mouse should not ask for 500mA. And my mouse should work on
>an unpowered USB hub (they can source 100mA).
>
>As for the characteristics of Flash memory, those vary, but modern TLC
>can sometimes fail in as little as a year of light usage. TLC tend to
>come in 32GB (or 16GB if they buy chips that are only half-working). Some
>of the smaller sticks, if you could still find them, they might be
>MLC or (less likely) SLC. My OCZ Rally2, is supposed to have two
>4GB chips inside it, which is most likely MLC.
>
>And when USB devices fail, yes, it is hard to tell what is going on.
>You can't tell whether some code on the PC ruined them, or they
>died of internal mis-management. In the end, it's all magic smoke
>and it's gone. That's all we know.

Okay, I can accept that. 
>    Paul