Sony USB 4GB Stick Slows Computer

[NinjaNick]

I've been trying to get about 10 videos and 1 picture off of my mom's old Sony 4GB USB stick but everytime I insert it into my USB 3.0 port on my PC the drive takes forever to actually load in File Explorer then when I go to transfer the files it gets stuck at 2-4%. It also seems to be affecting my NVMe boot drive because if I try to download something or create a new folder it freezes up and takes minutes before unfreezing. I've never encountered this before so I really have no idea what to do. My first guess is the USB has to be corrupted somehow but I want to get the files off before formatting and anytime I try to scan using something like Recuva it just fails.

[SpookyCitrus]

Sounds like the USB is dying/dead, you may not be able to get the files off of it. If it's actively freezing or crashing the computer when it's plugged in it's more than likely beyond repair. Does it have the same issue in a USB 2.0 port?

[barkydoggo]

USB stick is dying. Windows sometimes loses its mind when a defective storage device is attached. Check event viewer under system and see if there are disk errors.

 

I recommend booting to an external environment (WinPE or PartedMagic) and trying to copy the data off using that.

[NinjaNick]

28 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Sounds like the USB is dying/dead, you may not be able to get the files off of it. If it's actively freezing or crashing the computer when it's plugged in it's more than likely beyond repair. Does it have the same issue in a USB 2.0 port?

Yes. I was actually able to move over the smallest video after about 30 minutes when it's only 6 seconds long. Using VLC the video pauses about 1 second into it and is paused for a couple of seconds then resumes and has a lot of artifacting for the rest of the video. That's fine since I was at least able to recover it. I'm going to keep trying for the rest.

[NinjaNick]

On 5/7/2020 at 2:42 PM, barkydoggo said:

USB stick is dying. Windows sometimes loses its mind when a defective storage device is attached. Check event viewer under system and see if there are disk errors.

 

I recommend booting to an external environment (WinPE or PartedMagic) and trying to copy the data off using that.

Do you have any recommended guide I could follow? I was able to transfer everything except 3 videos. The weird part is they can play from the USB stick but when I try to transfer the files it fails.

[barkydoggo]

7 minutes ago, NinjaNick said:

Do you have any recommended guide I could follow? I was able to transfer everything except 3 videos. The weird part is they can play from the USB stick but when I try to transfer the files it fails.

To be honest I'm not sure about a guide. I kind of developed my own workflow and procedures.

 

But essentially you'll boot to either PartedMagic or this Windows PE Rescue ISO (link) and try some of their utilities for copying/recovering data. Keep in mind these are POWERFUL utilities so don't go digging or messing with stuff you don't understand.

 

I recommend starting with GetDataBack for whatever file system your flash drive is and going from there.

[NinjaNick]

On 5/12/2020 at 11:25 AM, barkydoggo said:

To be honest I'm not sure about a guide. I kind of developed my own workflow and procedures.

 

But essentially you'll boot to either PartedMagic or this Windows PE Rescue ISO (link) and try some of their utilities for copying/recovering data. Keep in mind these are POWERFUL utilities so don't go digging or messing with stuff you don't understand.

 

I recommend starting with GetDataBack for whatever file system your flash drive is and going from there.

I ended up using Hiren's BootCD PE which is free instead of PartedMagic and one of the data recovery utilities, Lazesoft Data Recovery, was able to transfer the videos after 24 hours of waiting! Way longer than I expected but I have them! My mom is so happy about it so thank you for the help. If anyone reads this and is in the same boat try it out. I used their USB Booting program to create a OS to boot from on a spare USB stick and it worked perfectly.

[barkydoggo]

On 5/13/2020 at 7:02 PM, NinjaNick said:

I ended up using Hiren's BootCD PE which is free instead of PartedMagic and one of the data recovery utilities, Lazesoft Data Recovery, was able to transfer the videos after 24 hours of waiting! Way longer than I expected but I have them! My mom is so happy about it so thank you for the help. If anyone reads this and is in the same boat try it out. I used their USB Booting program to create a OS to boot from on a spare USB stick and it worked perfectly.

That's awesome! Man Hiren's has changed for the better since I last used it. Well done!