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I just got a new PNY usb drive and it passed through an airport scanner yesterday.

For some reason, I wrote to it and then tried to read from it today, and it gave me a corrupted error!

chkdsk reports errors like:

Bad links in lost chain at cluster 1179 corrected.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1200.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1228.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1236.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1237.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1244.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1250.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1266.  Orphan truncated.
Lost chain cross-linked at cluster 1278.  Orphan truncated.

etc.

What is this from? Could it possibly be from the airport scanner? Or is it likely a defective USB chip?

How can I check the chip to see if I should just return/throw it away or continue to use it?

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2 Answers 2

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It is not clear from the question. You wrote to it before the scanner, or have you not used it at all till after it's passed through the scanner.

In any case, I've used sub's and took them with me through all kinds of scanners (including airport ones), and they worked fine afterwards, so ...

The errors you're getting indicate a corrupt FAT table. Your data is still there, but it could take weeks to find out which bits & bytes belong to what. Try some tools like Data Recovery Wizard, and see if it can help. There are also free ones out there, but I remember using this one once in the past once, so ...

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  • Have not used it at all until after the scanner. I knew that part was ambiguous, sorry
    – bobobobo
    Jan 9, 2010 at 15:58
  • Recovering the data isn't important, I really wnat to know about the quality of the key and if I should ever use it again, really.
    – bobobobo
    Jan 9, 2010 at 16:01
  • Well, I can't judge about PNY usb's, since I never even heard of them until now. But I see no reason why not. This is a data error, more probably caused by some software means than airport scanners. In general, after using all kinds of usbs I found that there isn't really a more reliable usb manufacturer than the other ... some just make the prettier case. Format the key, copy something on it (to fill it up), copy that off it, and if it works ... it's fine. Keep on using it.
    – Rook
    Jan 9, 2010 at 17:32
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The most likely case is you pulled the USB drive out before you were done writing to it (or you you powered down your device abruptly). So, as @Idigas says, your file allocation table (essentially a big file index) and some files didn't get completely flushed.

Scan disk is finding chunks of data on your disk that isn't associated with any file (a lost chain). It will name each of these lost chains FILExxxx.CHK and put them in the FOUND.xxx folder for you. The cross-linked means those lost chains overlap.

Really, any files you left open are best treated as gone and the FOUND files should just be deleted unless you are missing something critical. At which point you should look at recovery software.

In terms of the SD card quality and the airport scanner, which seem to be your main questions, scanners do not hurt SD cards (anymore than your cell phone). And your card is probably fine.

To verify the card, run a scan disk and have it check for bad sectors. I'm pretty sure it will not find any problems.

Some more info: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/83140 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc975099.aspx

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