Thumbdrive suddenly stopped working...would sanding dust be the cause???

[Metallica_Band]

Hey there...I have a 1GB thumbdrive...I've used it for less than 6 months I think...pretty sure sometime in 2004...now we're in the process of moving so we gotta straighten our house out...

my dad was fixing a water damaged part in my wall and had to use something that created a very fine dust cloud...when I came up to see what he was doing it looked like I was in a cloud...I know it was dust and not smoke cause when I looked at my PC case it was FULL of dust...all in my fans and fan grils and stuff...I quickly turned it off...

after he was done I dusted all of the inside of my computer with compressed air..now before all that I hadn't used my thumbdrive for about a day...but it was still plugged into my computer...when I went to school today I took the thumbdrive out and took it with me to school...I out it in and it didn't work...said it wouldn't recognise it...tried 3 Macs and 2 PC's...it wasn't working...the red light on the side was on (it's a read/write light just like for a hdd)...I could also feel it doing stuff inside...it was trying to do something but wouldn't...

Now what I'm wondering is if this just suddenly died or if the dust could be the cause...any suggestions??? THANX
C'YA :cool:

[[H]arls]

Seeing as there aren't any moving parts in them, I'd say the dust didnt have anything to do with it. More than likely it's just spontaneously died, they just do that sometimes.

All might not be lost though, there are a few programs about that might possibly save your drive. Apacer has a memory reset tool that re-initializes the key (that only works with stenos iirc) and most manufacturers have something similar as well, so it may be worth checking out the website to see if its available.

I've resigned myself to the fact that me & memory keys just don't get along. I've killed 3 so far this year due to stupidity on my part (putting it through the washing machine was a good one, and not recommended to try at home)