Avoid the shiny metal HP v220w USB flash drives

HP POS

HP POS

Please excuse my looooong absence, but I’ve been extraordinarily busy with hundreds of work projects these last few months.

Recently I purchased a HP v220w USB flash drive. It was on sale at the time and was the cheapest 16gb stick on the shelves, so I figured why not. A flash drive is a flash drive, right?

I first plugged it into my main desktop PC running Windows 7. It mounted, then disappeared, then re-mounted, then disappeared again.

OK, I thought, maybe it didn’t like Windows 7 or that particular PC. I rebooted the Windows 7 PC and tried plugging in the HP drive again, but got the same disappearing mount trick.

So I made the rounds…

  • Plugging it into a MacBook Pro Laptop : Wouldn’t mount five out of five times.
  • Plugging it into a Mac Pro 12-core Desktop : Wouldn’t mount five out of five times.
  • Plugging it into a Windows 7 desktop : Wouldn’t mount first 3 times. Mounted on 4th try and stayed mounted! Unplugging it and then plugging it back in… it wouldn’t mount.
  • Plugging it into a Windows 7 Laptop : Wouldn’t mount first 4 times. Mounted on 5th, then disappeared.
  • Plugging it into a Windows Vista desktop: Wouldn’t mount five out of five times.
  • Plugging it into a Windows XP desktop (the “emergency” spare): Wouldn’t mount five out of five times.

At this point, I knew it was a bad flash drive. So I went back to the store I bought it from and got an identical replacement HP drive. The same size, the same 220w variety.

So imagine my surprise when I plugged this new flash drive into my systems and the Same! Damn! Thing! Happened!

I was impressed. In all the wrong ways, mind you, but I was impressed.

So I looked online. Specifically HP’s own website where they sell this… thing. It’s full of one star reviews and people reporting similar experiences.

SO, in summary, I have to say the HP v220w USB flash drive is junk. Did I say junk? I meant ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. A USB drive that will not mount? That’s a textbook example of terrible engineering and rotten quality control.

HP: screwing up accessories every other company gets right.

18 thoughts on “Avoid the shiny metal HP v220w USB flash drives

  1. a totally agree with you. same thing with me. avoid HP, bad costumer support, bad product always.

  2. i also agree but it works on windows xp with pentium core
    it doesnt work on celeron and newer pc

  3. I wish I read this earlier. Id did work, but I did have some problems every now and then.. But yesterday the damned thing stopped working whatsoever after I put a few gig of podcasts I downloaded on it for transfer….

    So if you have one that works.. just don’t trust on it.

  4. PS: If I click the link in your article the page seems to be gone, but at least HP apologizes…

    We’re sorry.

  5. I have the 64GB – not recognized on macbook pro but works on windows machines – tried all sorts to fix it but when I plug it into the mac it just doesn’t exist

  6. @Brixter

    Hey Brixter, just because yours works fine it does not mean that everybody else’s does or it is a coincidence that he got two bad flash drives?

    What’s the chances of that happening…how on earth are you able to tell that both his flash drives were bad?

    How do you explain the other users experiencing the same problems above? Unlucky? Operator error?

    I just bought one of the HP 64GB v220W flash drives and my 2011 iMac will not even recognise it is plugged in!

    What an arrogant & ignorant tosser you are.

    I’m sure that’s not a coincidence…

  7. @Glyn
    @Glyn

    The way you are talking, “What an arrogant & ignorant tosser you are”
    how can you explain Brixter is arrogant, the way it sounded to me , I am sorry to say Arrogant is someone else. By the way, I bought this USB too, and its working fine. Either HP have improved the quality, or I am one of few lucky one who got working ones

  8. Bought this flash drive at walmart today. Mounted ok on my toshiba windows 7 laptop. Will not work on anything else though. I have other flash drives that work on all my pc’s. This HP stick is going back tomorrow. I will be buying another brand. Too bad cuz I like the size and smoked chrome look.

  9. I need driver software for hp v220w 16 GB pen drive. Any one can help me…. thx in advance

  10. I bought the v220w 32GB for its tiny and metalic looking. Boy! What thing I’ve done there! Never Never I recommend to buy this garbage! Oh yes It works…at an one century old Galapagos turtle speed! Mind you, it takes above 30 minutes to copy on it 400MB file size! For comparison it took less than 5 minutes on an unbranded usb pendrive.
    HP= Hash Product! pass your way!
    For Raj,
    you loose your time to get a driver for your 16BG!

  11. i have the 220w 16gb one it works fine for me and other pc, maybe your system is problem not the drive itself

  12. Hay All. I have this product and it is too good with its work even very good read and write speed….. with Windows XP, 7 and 8 it is very good with work..

  13. I bought the HP v220w 32GB USB Flash Drive recently. When I plugged into my PC, no icon appeared in windows 8. On exploring the “Disk Management”, the drive is appearing in the list but is inaccessible. On exploring the properties of this device, it is found out that the windows is detecting it as a USB 3.0 rather than USB 2.0 device. Due to this conflict, the flash drive’s icon is not appearing in My Computer. I am quite disappointed with the quality of this HP product.

  14. why don t the responsible people improve this damn usb.. I am having a similar problem with my hp usb( metalic case shining steel white).. but i forgot ” ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GOLD”………

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