Today I bought a cheap 32 megs USB key as an extra backup for documents I don't want to lose. I've had bad luck with failing hard drives, so I tought if I had an extra backup somewhere else it would be nice.

The problem is that when I put it in a usb slot in my Windows XP, windows detect it as "ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ USB Device" or something like that and says it doesn't have the drivers for it. I've seen the exact same type of usb key used before and they worked fine.

So what could be the problem? Did I just get unlocky and buy a defective one? Anyone seen this happen before? I was planing to buy a one gig one soon for transfers and such, and I'm not so sure now until I know if it's related to my computer or the key...

I've never had a problem with the one I've used in the past. My mom, who has it now, has never reported a problem to me either. Have you tried using a different USB port to see if that particular port is bad? Maybe a dumb question, and it could just as easily be the actual drive you purchased, but it pays to be sure. Also, if Windows didn't automatically assign a drive letter to it, you may try to do so manually. I'm not sure if that would work, but it is a thought.

Sounds to me like it's dead, was it second hand?

Generally when the hardware has trouble reading the devices name/data, it assigns a random bunch of numbers/letters to be it's name.

Give it a good blow out, but if that doesn't work, i'm pretty sure its dead.

Try it on another computer. If it fails there, take it back to where you got it and tell them it's bad, and that you've tried it on two different machines.

It's new and fresh out of the package. I tried it both on my front and back usb slots, nothing worked.

I'll try a second computer later when I can.

How old is your computer? Could it be you've got USB1 slots, and the key is USB 2? The key should be backward compatible, but you never know...

It's 3 years old or so. It's a P4 3Ghz with all the fancy stuff and back then it cost me a lot.

My brother for a while had the exact same type of key and it worked just fine on his old p3 1.2 ghz or so before he upgraded.

<font color=8fbc8f>What happens when you let it run it's course of self installing the embedded driver? Not all USB thumb drives are of the same standard.</font>

Well the XP installing windows come up and tell me it doesn't have drivers for the ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ USB Device and ask me what I want to do. Nothing work and I have to eventually cancel out and get the "error during installation" message.

Buying a dud USB stick is entirely possible. I recently ginned around for a whole weekend trying to figure out why files stored on my brand new USB were rendered unuseable when i transferred it to another computer three feet away. Try it on a different machine, then exchange it for one that works.