Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with thumbdrive

USB key-friendly photo viewer for Windows /w tagging?

onshi — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:04:36 -0800

Can you recommend a lightweight, USB key-friendly photo viewer software for Windows that supports tagging? If Cornice Portable supported tags (or was still under development) that would be perfect, as I use PortableApps on my thumb drive. Ideas/suggestions?

Yes, obviously I should back-up more often.

PhoBWanKenobi — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:00:21 -0800

Did my fiance's computer bork my thumb drive, and what can I do to get my data back? I use a 2 GB Kingston DataTraveler to transport my writing (particularly my novel*) between my two home PCs--both running Ubuntu--and my Windows XP work computer. I always always "safely remove"/unmount and haven't had problems with it on either type of system.

Last night, I plugged it into my fiance's Windows XP machine for the first time. It pulled up an error message--"USB device not recognized" and asked us to install drivers, but when I went through the driver installation wizard, it said the drivers were up to date. Since then, no other computers recognize the Kingston at all; it's as if I haven't even plugged it in. What's more, the thumb drive doesn't show up unless I plug it into the same USB port on my fiance's computer, in which case it spits out the same error message.

I realize that USB sticks are unreliable and sometimes just die but the fact that it still shows up on the fiance's computer when I plug it into that one port makes me wonder if the data/stick might somehow be recoverable from that port. Plus, I had been using it (and safely removed it) just twenty minutes before at work! I tried rebooting and unplugging the power supply (as well as installing drivers), but that's all so far. I'm at work right now, so I can't try any data recovery programs--and the computer doesn't "see" the stick, anyway--but I'll try any and all suggestions once I get home today.

So, metafilter, what are my options to try getting my data back?

*Luckily, I'd backed up my data two weeks ago, so I'll have only lost 17 pages; the drive being bricked would be a pain, not a disaster. But still a pain. Back up your data, kids!

where to buy a thumb drive with write lock switch

meta87 — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:11:46 -0800

I really thought this would be easier to find, but I can't seem to locate a thumb drive that I can order online with a write lock switch. Preferably 1 gig or more and as cheap as possible. If anyone knows of a particular model I would really appreciate it!

Looking for suggestions for a good flash drive holder.

4ster — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:32:53 -0800

Help me find a good way to carry my flash (thumb) drive on my key chain. I am using the Sandisk Cruzer, and I would like to attach it to my key chain, using something that is both secure and as small as possible. The Cruzers come with a keychain loop already attached, but in my experience, it is flimsy and will stretch out and break over time.

If you have a solution that is working for you, I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

Tinyxp on tiny media

saysthis — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:09:36 -0800

I want Tinyxp Rev09 to to boot and install to a system's hard drive from a USB key, no CD's involved. How? My googling turned up lots of linux knowledge about this, and I imagine I could make it work if I were installing a Linux distribution, but it seems like there's comparatively little out there for xp.

There is BartsPE, but that seems to want a CD to go with it. Am I wrong? And the USB key version of tinyxp that's floating around the torrent networks is a live environment and doesn't have the repair utilities that the tinyxp CD comes with (which are the clincher for me).

This particular machine can boot from USB if I set it up to emulate a floppy (which from my googling just indicates you have to format the drive with FAT16 before you throw on the boot sector). I might be wrong about this too, but USB boot options are listed in my Award 6.00Pg BIOS. I know the laptop without an optical drive I'm planning to use this on can. But I'd like to turn this into a universal solution for my installs, rather than digging out my DVD's every time something goes wrong, so the more backward compatibility I can pull out of it the better.

How to get a thumb drive to mount

jazon — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:09:54 -0800

Help me get a Memorex USB TravelDrive to work once again with my Dell Laptop! I received a 4gb Memorex USB TravelDrive thumb drive as a gift. I attached it to my Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop (windows XP), and the computer froze before the drive would mount.

I rebooted, but now the drive won't do anything at all except lock the computer up. The drive works on other XP computers and in my Macintosh at home.

Running device manager shows the device is working properly, but it never fully mounts and ends up taking the OS down instead. I have tried wiping the thumb drive and starting over, but it never works with my laptop.

How can I "reset" things to make the drive work again?

Is my flash drive dead?

IndigoRain — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 02:59:25 -0800

Has my flash drive kicked the can? Windows Vista can't read it. I have a 1GB PNY USB drive with many files on it (I have backups, no worries there.) The entire drive is NOT encrypted, but there is a container file on it which is encrypted with TrueCrypt, and the default auto-run option is set to TrueCrypt. It's been running fine up until today.

When I insert my flash drive, Vista (Home Basic) tells me I need to format it. I tried a program called TestDisk and it found nothing on my drive. Right-clicking the drive in My Computer says it's completely full (it's not). I decided to try to format the drive since I have backups - I tried a quick format and Vista says it was unable to complete the format almost instantly. Then I tried a regular (i.e. not quick) and got the same message.

I've never had a flash drive die before, although I am aware they do eventually expire. Is mine dead or is this some problem with Windows?

Flash drive won't reclaim free space from deleted files.

tylermoody — Wed, 09 May 2007 17:21:07 -0800

My usb thumb drives won't reclaim space from deleted files (in OS X) I have a first gen iPod Shuffle and a 1g usb flash drive that won't "get back" free space when I delete files. The iPod works fine when I'm just using it for music, but gets this problem when I use it to store files. Reformatting them gives me the space back, and I can fill them up fine, but the free space never comes back. The iPod has been acting like this for months; the flash drive just started doing this 2 or 3 days ago. I'm running 10.4.9.

Thumb drive woes

caution live frogs — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:48:40 -0800

Need help with managing volume policy permissions for removable devices in WinXP. I have a workstation on a domain. My standard user account uses the domain log-in. We are not to run our systems as administrators (which makes using XP a pain) but I can run specific programs as administrator if I have to.

Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me figure out what I need to do to be able to change the write caching policy for removable devices. Zip drives and USB drives are automatically installed optimized for performance rather than quick removal. Changing this permission as administrator does not change it for my standard user account. I have tried mucking with registry permissions and the group policy editor. Currently I have managed to give myself permission to load and unload drivers, view and manage devices, but still cannot change the write caching policy - am I missing an obvious registry key permission or local/group policy that should be changed to fix this?

Microsoft support gives me multiple pages of info about write caching and about permissions but no data on managing this issue. I can open device manager, I can get volume policies for my drives, but the option to change policies is grayed out.

Having to manually stop writes to the drive every time I need to remove it is screwing with my workflow. If my work system trashes my entire drive due to write caching I'm going to be pretty pissed.

Lost my thumb drive cap.

DevilsAdvocate — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 09:19:16 -0800

I've lost the cap to my thumb drive. a) Does it matter? b) If so, where do I get a replacement? Specifically, it's a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 512MB drive.

If I just carry it around on my keychain in my pocket without a cap, is it likely to get damaged--either physically, or the data stored on it?

If I do need to replace it, where? Google and Froogle searches on thumb drive cap or flash drive cap don't find much, save for this one at a .au site I'm not familiar with. (Perhaps I'm not searching the right term? Is it called something else?) I haven't tried brick-and-mortar stores--does a store like Fry's or Best Buy have caps alone for sale?

Just One Drive, Thanks

rossination — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 17:18:23 -0800

I just bought a cheap 256mb flash drive at the university bookstore. It has some bizarre formatting setup where it appears on my iBook (10.4) as two drives, one 1.44 mb, one 244.2 mb. Apparently there are some security features (a .pdf and .exe file were included, the latter of which is obviously no use to me) that are built in as well. What I'd really like to do is just make this show up as a 256mb drive that I can use on my Mac or on a PC. I didn't realize that these ubiquitous thumb drives were such a pain in the ass to use. Or did I really make a mistake by not buying a "name brand" one?

Here's a link to the .pdf that was included. I don't know whether or not this is helpful: USB Disk [sic] Pro (.pdf).

I forgot the password for my USB thumbdrive!

sk381 — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 07:42:10 -0800

Is there anyway I can still access the files on it? If that's not possible, can the drive be still made usable, by reformatting it in some fashion? Or will I just have to get a new one and dumb this one into the garbage can?

USB key anomaly

jadanzzy — Fri, 05 May 2006 06:08:04 -0800

There should only be 5 mb of data on my 1 gig usb drive, but it says there's 493 mb used up. what's going on? is there something i'm missing? did i make it bootable or something? and can i format it again to wipe everything out?

Encrypting a USB thumbdrive for OS X and Windows?

jaimev — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 11:50:13 -0800

I'd like to password protect the contents of a USB thumbdrive that will be accessed from an OS X and Windows platform. Ideally, it would be nice to create a virtual encrupted disk within a file (ala TrueCrypt). I'll settle for some archive format. But whatever I end up with has to be cross-platform between OS X and a Windows box, and have relatively strong encryption. Freeware would be very preferable.

Does such a thing exist?

What useful programs/utilities can I put on a thumbdrive?

EmuBite — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 09:15:18 -0800

What useful programs/utilities can I put on a thumbdrive? I was recently given a 1GB thumbdrive for my birthday. I've transfered all my documents and other important backups to the drive, and I'm left with about 850MBs of free space. Are there any useful programs or utilities I can put on it? Ideally, I'd love to keep this thumbdrive on my keychain and use it to help friends with computer problems. (Yes, I'm the resident "computer guy" in my neck of the woods!) TIA for any information you can provide.

1 gig = wishful thinking?

moonbird — Thu, 26 May 2005 03:58:14 -0800

Based on excellent advice from this thread, I settled on a Creative Muvo 1 gig mp3 player. I've been happily adding tracks, but when I hit the 532 mb mark, it won't let me add anything else. Everything in there so far are mp3s with a handful of wmas, and I'm stumped as to why I can't have a gig of files on a gig drive. Ideas?

Password protect my thumbdrive?

celibate_life — Tue, 17 May 2005 15:26:42 -0800

Does anyone know a simple (and free) method of password-protecting my USB thumbdrive?

Portable Jump-Drive Copier?

everichon — Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:36:28 -0800

I have in mind a device: it is portable (battery-powered); you plug pen/jump/thumb drive 'A' into it, and then plug pen drive 'B' into it. Press a button, and 'A' is mirrored to 'B'. Does this device exist?

Offline Reader Software

syscom — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 18:26:48 -0800

Having had any chance of a steady internet connection from home lost for the time being, is there a kind of 2005-style offline reader software available that can download mail to a single file on a usb key, to load up and reply to at home outside of the time and money limits of a dingy internet cafe? Something that has versions in Windows (for the cafe) and Linux (for home) would definitely make things easier, but I'm happy and anxious to hear any ideas.

USB Drive

kaefer — Fri, 24 Dec 2004 01:28:57 -0800

So I just got a 512MB USB key drive as an early christmas present, and I'm looking for interesting things to put on it (other than, you know, files). I know about Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird, but is there anything else I should check out?