My desktop has a problem with this flash drive - help!

[Biren]

So I just got a Cruzer Titanium 4GB.. and it's nice.. but for some reason my desktop seems to have problems with it. I've tried so many things, including the following:

- Removing the U3 software (originally thought this might be the cause)
- Reformatting the drive
- Tried without my USB extension cord
- Checked for any power management 'features' there might be (none found)
- Left the flash drive connected to my laptop overnight using the extension cord (and this problem never happened on my laptop - which means it's something up with my desktop)
- After the problem happens (and the folders/files disappear) and I use the "Eject" function in windows, this error message comes up: "'CzTitanium (N' is currently in use. If you eject this disk now, you may lose data in any open files. Before ejecting the disk, make sure that all files are closed and no multimedia files (such as music or video) are playing." - I've gone through processes and looked for anything that could be linked to my flash drive, but I fathom anything that would
- Re-enabled the "removable storage" service in windows - I had this disabled and put it back on the windows default (manual).. problem still happens

So, after all of the above... here's my educated guess as to what's going on:
- Possibly some sort of software I can't detect that's causing this
- Perhaps some sort of issue with the two usb ports I've been using.. these are the case's usb ports (not the ports in back directly connected to the mobo), so perhaps there's a faulty connection

Some questions I have about this:

- What on earth might cause windows to stop seeing data on the drive (When it happens, you can no longer see any files/folders on the drive, nor retrieve the free/used space with right click>properties.. BUT - the partition stays mounted.. so it's not like the drive was pulled out.)

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated

 

[Biren]

Alright... for an update.. here's some more stuff I tried:

- Quit samurize ..since it polls the drive for free space, I figured it might be causing something - After samurize was disabled, the drive didn't 'fail' until like 2.5 hours later (which is a record time being plugged into my desktop without the problem).. but it failed, nonetheless.
- I believe the error happens during an access process.. I've been using explorer to access the drive a ton of times in a short amount of time to (try to) make the problem to happen, with limited success.. I now think the problem happens after being plugged in so long and during an access process due to the fact that I accessed it *many* times on my desktop right after I plugged it in and didn't get the error... until I let it sit plugged in for a while and tried to access it again. I'm going to try it on my laptop using this method (leave it plugged in for a while then try to access it a bunch of times), because I still haven't had the drive fail on my laptop.

Still, any help/suggestions would be very much appreciated.

 

[Biren]

Alright, I'm pretty sure the problem is solved now.. someone finally suggested going into the event log and looking for errors that might be related to the drive. Turns out every time this was happening it'd throw up an Event ID 11 error.. ((A hardware failure that prevents communication with a disk (for example, a loose cable, a loose disk controller card, or a cable failure).)). So, I went out and bought a PCI-USB controller from walmart (ouch. that set me back $26) and I've been running the flash drive without a problem for at least 5 hours now.

 

[Biren]

Sadly, I was wrong. Like a day or two after I had bought that card, the problem happened yet again. It's gotta be a software problem on my desktop, I can't really think of anything else it might be. :| I also took that card back, no use in having a $26 card if it doesn't solve the issue I have.