Customer Reviews

Lexar Media 512 MB JumpDrive Secure USB 2.0 (JDS512-432)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

All,
This item won't fit in a lot of USB ports (to big). The product died on me after a month and I sent it back to Lexar.
Don't use the software that comes with it, it's buggy and won't let you disconnect the drive without telling you that it's in use, which it isn't. Delete the software on the drive and have Windows Format it as NTFS. Come on Lexar, how many people are still using the FAT system?. Plus it's supposed to be plug and play, not plug and pray, so for get the non-functional sofware.
If you partition the drive into a secure area you can't defrag that section without re-formatting all the drive and wiping your data. The product worked long enough for me to throw away my receipt. I read on-line, other people have the same issues. Lexar replaced the drive, but kept my manual and product information and sent me a replacement in an envelope.
Stay away from this product, it's bad.
/
Brian

I bought two Lexar thumbdrives, over other brands, partially based on their rebate offers. Despite my methodical record keeping and submission, I simply got post cards saying that I did not "meet" the rebate requirements (in place of the rebate checks). The first time it happened, I thought it was, oh well, my fault, But the same identical thing happened on my second rebate submission. This is simply frank fraud by Lexar, on a smaller scale, therefore not worth customers' time to file a complaint or to pursue it further. I hope the recent fines associated bogus rebates woke up these small time thieves and deterred them from deceiving and conning their customers again.

I was really excited to get the JumpDrive because of the reviews I read. True, it is a lot more durable than many flash drives, but I've had so many problems that it's entirely not worth it. From day one I was unable to use it with most of the computers at school because the JumpDrive tries to install its "secure" software onto whatever computer you plug it into. Most public computers will not allow this due to all of the computer viruses going around. Unfortunately, if the software doesn't install you can't access the drive. Another problem that I've had while using it with friends' computers is that it will occasionally delete entire batches of files! I've always been careful to properly eject the device, but more than once it has deleted numerous files that I had recently saved onto it. I generally like Lexar products, but not this. My friends have cheaper flashdrives that do a much, MUCH better job.

The first one died after a month (lost everything on the drive, fortunately I had a recent backup), sent the defective drive back to Lexar, took 2 months to get a replacement, now a month after the replacement, it also died, I lost two hours worth of work, to bad so sad., It will not even format. I replaced a 256MB Lexar JumpDrive 2.0 with this piece of junk. What a mistake. The secure feature is compelling, but the risk is too high.

I am looking elsewhere, you should also.

When it worked, it did as described, but twice it stopped functioning and all data was lost. Now when it is connected the computer fails to recognize it. There are many better, more reliable brands, such as the Sony Micro Vault which I have now. Nevertheless I wouldn't put anything on these that I didn't have backed up. These drives heat up if you leave them connected to the computer. Heat will cause them to fail faster.

The JumpDrive worked fine for me for about a month, and then it started acting weird. It was recognized by the Device Manager as working properly, but it did not show in My Computer and was therefore inaccessible. So, was the JumpDrive there or not??

Lexar live chat support attempted to help me but later resorted to sending me a Resurrection Tool via email, with instructions. After executing the Tool (and consequently losing my data), it happened all over again five minutes later!

This is a little disappointing, since this is the first USB drive I've purchased and used. I thought it would help with moving and storing files, but it's turning out to be more trouble than it's worth.

I got this on sale at Office Max in January and with rebates it was $29.99 + tax. If I had paid more I might be angry with it but at that price it's OK! Got it to use as a backup/portable storage unit to work between two computers. For that it's completely adequate. However there are some deficiencies such as being 493 MB instead of the full 512 as advertised and being FAT which loses you even more space. And speaking of space it's physically too fat to plug into some USB ports on some computers. Saving grace for me was having two Dell's each with a front port.

More serious is it's, at least on my machine, being unstable when you reformat it to NTFS or run Checkdisc for errors. In both cases I got the dreaded "Blue Screen" and was forced to shut down and restart. It reformatted to NTFS but I didn't need the drama.

My advice also is to forget the security software. It has maddening limitations not least of which is one more step to get into the drive.

With this drive the KISS method is the best. Plug it in and transfer your data to and from it and it won't make trouble for you. Get fancy and you can lose all your data as happened to me.

I like the style and look of this jump drive but sometimes it is a little too fat to fit in the back of some computers. The choice was unplug the keyboard to plug in the drive. I can work with it.
There is no way to pull up the software to access the secure portion of the drive. The software comes up sporadically. I haven't been able to get into my secure drive for some time and I need to do a re-partition. Any suggestions?

It is a drag to have to delete everything on the jump to re-partition so if I ever get the opportunity again, I will make my public drive much larger.

Otherwise, I like it.

I think that most of the other people using this item haven't been properly trained. While the documentation on the software is lacking, it does work quite well. I really only have 2 small problems with the Secure JumpDrive.

1. You have to install the software on any machine you wish to access the "Secure" portion of the drive from. This isn't a big deal, this is just like saying you have you install WinZip(tm) or the like to use zip files.

2. It's too sensitive to shock damage. After dropping the drive once to often I had to pry open the case and re-solder the timing crystal. While this wasn't a big deal it is probably more than most people want to deal with.

All in all, I like the JumpDrive and the 256bit AES encryption is REALLY nice to have, but if you are going to get it, then be nice to it.

This product is not very good, in fact I had to throw it away and buy a new one from a different mfg.

After a month of use I tried to resize the secure partion using the recommened methods and it failed. After several lengthy calls to tech support I realized the unit was not fixable so I hucked it in the trash can.

Dont use their secure junk software and you'll probably be fine.