This is a tricky problem. Hopefully I can assist you with it. I've only had one jumpdrive and so far its worked great. Keep in mind I only support win2k and no other windows OS, heh.

Ok so, one works and the other one doesnt even have a chance. First lets address teh Corsair flash drive. Have you used the drive in another machine? If so then try to check the manufacturers website and see if there are driver updates for it for Vista or contact their tech staff. I'm sure they would be willing to provide links or tell you if there are drivers available for it or not. If it doesnt work then there is a good chance the drive is fried. Some companies online will do diagnostics on it and if possible recover the lost data. Otherwise, get and RMA from Corsair and return it to get a new one. Just tell them you bought it a few weeks ago and now its fried :-P

Next your PNY.

1: The reason for the explorer window of the drive opening is that window slike to keep track of what windows were open during a crash. funny how linux doesnt do that ;-) So if you have the window open or anything else open on the screen, it will automatically open that spot back up for you so you dont lose your place. Or so ive read/seen/been told.

Check PNY for support with that drive. It doesnt look like software is available for it but you could try to reinstall the driver manually. Sometimes that will help. Honestly im not too sure about your problem. its one of thsoe things where I need hands on with it to tell you.

2: this is an important one. NEVER format your jump drive. You should never have to do that unless you just want to whipe the data from it and even then shift+delete will work. The reasong for safely remove hardware option is because it needs to write the cache to the drive. Sometimes data can be lost if things arent removed safely.

Post any comments or question.

josh_rain