Questions tagged [usb-flash-drive]

USB Flash Drives are portable USB drives that rely upon flash storage, also known as pen drives or USB sticks.

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Windows 7 USB setup freezes at logo on modern laptop

I want to use Windows Vista or 7 mostly because of its skin. I want to use it at my own risk. I've considered embedding it into a VM, like on Virtual Box, but I didn't get satisfied with it. My laptop ...
4 votes
3 answers
5k views

How to fix Flash Drive write speeds dropping to 4 Kilobytes after heavy use?

I purchased a SanDisk Extreme Go 64GB USB flash drive about 2 months ago. Out of the box, it performed as advertised, with 4k r/w being really good. Since it was faster than my HDD, I decided to use ...
1 vote
1 answer
980 views

Bootable USB Flash Drive Detection Issue on the BIOS

Nowadays, I am trying to update my desktop computer, which uses Windows 10 Pro 32-bit version, to Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (By the way, the desktop is eligible for such an operation.). For that goal, I'...
2 votes
1 answer
123 views

How to check total written size to USB thumb drives?

(Asking in general but I need the answer specifically for SanDisk drives) Is there a way to see total written size to USB thumb drives? Just like Samsung-Magician's SSD health check, but for thumb/...
3 votes
2 answers
4k views

badblocks found bad sectors on usb pen, how to mark these up so nothing will write on them

Got a 2TB usb pen, format to exfat and did a badblocks check, pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo badblocks -vsw /dev/sda1 -o /home/pi/badblocks.out Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode From block 0 to ...
1 vote
3 answers
1k views

Find device node path of the last inserted USB drive

To eventually put into a bash script and/or Makefile, I'm wanting to find the device node path of the last inserted USB drive on a Debian system. It will most likely be something like /dev/sdb, but ...
0 votes
0 answers
718 views

/dev/sdc1 not showing under /dev/sdc for my pendrive

I am trying to connect 16 DB kingston data traveller to my Ubuntu machine. This pendrive is not being detected in other machines. Thats why I tried to check it. When I issue a lsblk command, I am ...
8 votes
2 answers
2k views

“Real” raw access of flash memory cards?

I have a 16GB microSDHC card that apparently was nuked by the phone (a friend's phone, not sure which, but I can find out): while taking pictures, it suddenly could no longer access/recognize the card....
0 votes
0 answers
197 views

DD copy prematurely reports "no space left on device". Beyond hardware failure, what could have caused that?

I have an embedded device booting from SD card with 8GB internal flash (enumerating at /dev/mmcblk1). I used to be able to manipulate the flash just fine (as in, I know that it is actually 8GB and ...
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

USB drive gets hot/warm even when computer is turned off (but power supply is plugged in)

I noticed something weird today. I left my USB drive (SANDISK) on my desktop computer. When I unplug the USB after a few days, I noticed that the USB drive is warm. (I didn't turn the computer on at ...
1 vote
1 answer
102 views

microSD card doesn't preserve data and format

I recently bought a new 512GB Toshiba PRO Plus microSD card, SDXC card, to be used with a USB type-A adapter on Ubuntu or SolusOS (linux distro) primarily and to take backups of some 7zip encrypted ...
3 votes
3 answers
1k views

Is there a S.M.A.R.T. for Flash Drives?

There's a technology called S.M.A.R.T. that tells you when a HDD is about to go bad. Is there a similar technology for SSD/Thumbdrives?
2 votes
1 answer
679 views

Do USB memory sticks and memory cards not have S.M.A.R.T. data on-board?

As I understand it, USB memsticks (and memory cards) use the same basic technology as SSD disks. But then why does CrystalDiskInfo detect and show all kinds of information for all my HDDs and SSDs, ...
0 votes
0 answers
2k views

Cant get to BIOS menu pages (Insydeh20 setup utility)

I have been trying to boot a USB pen with the gparted live, but it seems it is not detected. Most solutions that I found require me to access the BIOS setup where I should change the boot priorities ...
0 votes
2 answers
58 views

Are there good reasons NOT to have a physical “unmount” button on USB thumb drives? [closed]

There are always the odd cases where file loss happens due to people unplugging USB drives without unmounting them. Some users find the unmount process (at least on on windows) to be tedious or ...
0 votes
0 answers
30 views

Computer not booting from USB

I have an old ThinkCentre A70 with the latest Ubuntu version on it. I have downloaded the windows iso and formatted on a flash drive. I have configured bios to make it boot from usb but it just will ...
1 vote
1 answer
49 views

Adding custom text after portable USB drive letter

Kinda fancy question, but how can I add custom text after portable drive letter name? My DVD has the following name pattern: Label (DriveLetter:) CustomText But my other USB portable drive has: ...
1 vote
2 answers
1k views

Life of flash drive and ReadyBoost

I've seen many articles about flash drive life expectancy. They say that the life of flash drive is about 10,000 write cycles. Is this true or just a myth? Second, Microsoft Windows Vista and 7 have ...
3 votes
2 answers
833 views

Set Windows in a mode that all USB flash drives inserted in the future won't require "Eject"

I'm working on an embedded computer in kiosk mode, where the users can insert an USB flash drive. Even if I add a "Eject USB storage device" button in my app's GUI, often, some users won't ...
0 votes
2 answers
157 views

If both USB memsticks and SSD disks use the same technology, why does only the latter "forget" data?

I recently learned (or was tricked into believing) that SSD disks actually forget all their data on them if left unpowered for just a year. Assuming that this is true, and I've spent more than enough ...
0 votes
1 answer
477 views

How to repair an USB drive?

I just have used my USB drive and at one day when I plug in it into a device it showed me an error. I tried all USB ports on 4 PCs. Here's picture of this USB drive in "This PC" This USB ...
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

Can't open Disk Management with USB drive plugged in

Running Win 10 Home, I recently formatted a USB drive with EaseUS Partition Master, nothing fancy, just a single NTFS volume. Now whenever the drive is plugged in, EaseUS can't detect it, Windows ...
0 votes
0 answers
87 views

Does MacOS locally store information about external drives?

I used a borrowed Mac to transfer sensitive data directly between two USB thumb drives. Ideally, I'd like to not leave a single trace of the files and transfers on the borrowed Mac, but I understand ...
0 votes
0 answers
55 views

Why did Teracopy show 100% progress so early?

I am trying to copy data from CD to my pen drive using Teracopy (software). Even with data still left to copy, it started showing 100%. Why so?
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

USB stick not recognized. "Set Address Failed"

My USB stick stopped working. When plugged into the USB port there will be a windows sound, stick will show up for a couple of seconds in the explorer (but cannot be opened nor right-clicked) and then ...
1 vote
2 answers
6k views

Write an image file to just one partition of usb flash drive

I want to burn an image to a USB flash drive that I have partitioned. All the imaging programs I have tried format the entire drive, erasing the partition. I have also tried to resize the partition ...
15 votes
3 answers
32k views

What does the "open as portable device" option in Windows do?

I just bought a new USB stick, and when I plug it in and open My Computer, the context menu for the USB stick has an option "open as portable device". Clicking it opens a new window that just seems to ...
0 votes
0 answers
58 views

Bitlocker Encrypted Thumb Drive Suddenly Stopped Working

for backup purposes I encrypted two mirrored thumb drives with bitlocker. I usually leave them plugged in and they have been working fine until I rebooted my PC. Now a notification keeps flashing ...
2 votes
4 answers
8k views

How do I make my windows 10 PC act as a usb flash drive?

I want to install Ubuntu from a bootable usb but currently don't have access to a USB flash drive for storage, What I do have though is a two-way USB (type A) cable and I'm thinking I could plug one ...
1 vote
0 answers
51 views

Do USB sticks and memory cards forget their data if left without power, just like SSDs? [duplicate]

I recently learned that SSDs actually forget data if left unpowered for like a year. This was shocking news to me. But then I started thinking, and realized that while all my offline backup disks are ...
6 votes
2 answers
20k views

How to combine all partitions of USB flash drive?

I hope this is the right place to post this. I have an SP brand 32GB USB flash drive. When it was brand new I installed the TAILS OS on it and it seemed to create a bootable EFI system partition of ...
4 votes
1 answer
205 views

Force every external USB storage device (USB HDD, USB flash drives of any brand, etc.) to be assigned the same letter G:

I know the "Disk management" (diskmgmt.msc) way to assign a driver letter such as G: to a (currently physically present) specific disk or device. But here my question is a little bit ...
0 votes
0 answers
269 views

SSD can't be formatted [duplicate]

I'm trying to get a fake 7TB SSd storage, that in reality is a 64GB SSD to work. I can work on a Linux machine as well. Until now, the disk is not formatable, I can't clean it using diskpart on ...
2 votes
0 answers
903 views

USB port not connecting to or reading USB flash drives

I am working on a desktop running Debian Stable Linux and it is otherwise working very well. Only problem is that it is not connecting to USB flash drives. This is true for all its USB ports and I ...
-2 votes
1 answer
985 views

How to make a USB Flash Drive readonly for all systems except mine, where only I have permissions to copy/write/delete stuff?

So I need to share my USB Flash drive to a lot of people from time to time. My requirement is simple, others should not be able to copy or delete any data from my flash drive. So far I've only tried ...
-1 votes
3 answers
7k views

How to burn a .bin image to a USB flash drive in Windows 7?

I’m running Windows 7 and have a .bin file that I need to burn to a USB flash drive. It’s the Chromebook recovery image for my HP Chromebook 14-q063cl. So, as far as i know, the dd command isn't ...
0 votes
1 answer
170 views

My USB kind of shows up on Windows 10 [duplicate]

I have an old USB I plugged into my computer, but it doesn't show up in file explorer. I tried running CHKDSK on it but it said Cannot open volume for direct access. I tried using FORMAT but it also ...
0 votes
0 answers
219 views

I can not copy the Windows 98 folder to another drive in FreeDOS

Maybe you have read my other post about trying to install Windows 98 on modern hardware, hasn't come with much luck yet but i will never give up. So i ran into the problem about Win98 not knowing ...
18 votes
5 answers
49k views

Should I format USB sticks and SD cards to FAT, FAT32, exFAT or NTFS? (Windows files, live Linux distributions)

Does it depend on the media size which one to chose or on some other parameters? On Windows 7, FAT16 is the default. In pendrivelinux.com's Universal USB Installer, FAT32. Which one should I ...
0 votes
0 answers
34 views

PC not recognize usb after modification

i have and product consists an USB port. For a reason, we have to modify the line from product to PC to another port (B) as attachment ( i made it in simple circuit). Even though the USB port B not ...
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

Can a microSD card with an USB adapter be used to flash a BIOS?

Does it act the same way a USB flash drive does? And would it work with the option to update the BIOS via the current BIOS or the new feature motherboards have where a BIOS can be updated without a ...
0 votes
1 answer
493 views

My USB Headphones show up as USB Flash Drive

So, here's it. It shows mine USB headset as non-functional USB Drive for some reason. And it did not do that previously. It works perfectly as it was before, but still pops up as USB Drive. And in ...
3 votes
4 answers
4k views

1 GB space left, even after formatting a 16 GB flash drive? [duplicate]

My 16 GB USB flash drive (SanDisk Cruzer SDCZ36-016G BL1008OFZB) got corrupted and I was going to format it, when I saw the setting for size only had one element in its dropdown menu: 1.00 GB. ...
0 votes
2 answers
410 views

Which partition do devices read, if there are multiple? Is there a standard?

Say I have a 128GB USB drive and I want to use it for multiple things. I want to install Ventoy on it, so I can drag'n'drop ISO files to it, and make it easy to install any operating system. On top of ...
0 votes
1 answer
775 views

If I partition a storage device, would BIOS see the partitions as if there are separate physical devices?

I have a 2TB flash drive and I'm planning to partition it into three — one as Windows bootable, one as Ubuntu bootable, and one as just normal flash storage. Now if I will plug it into a laptop, turn ...
2 votes
0 answers
370 views

Do magnets effect flash storage devices? [duplicate]

I'm thinking about using magnets to organize my flash drives. I have standard flash drives you can buy at any store, and some that are M.2 drives inside an enclosure (I know you can buy this too, but ...
0 votes
2 answers
404 views

Why do some FAT32 / ExFAT formatted USB pen drives only work in Windows?

I've come across several USB drives that don't work in Mac computers at all (I've tested on 3 Mac computers, so it's not a problem with the USB ports in a particular Mac machine). No drive appears in ...
6 votes
3 answers
33k views

How to remove or disable McAfee File and Removable Media Protection

How to remove or temporary disable McAfee File and Removable Media Protection? It wants to encrypt USB devices anytime they are plugged in or otherwise it sets them to read only. Any idea how to get ...
2 votes
3 answers
4k views

Are all USB flash drives capable of being booted from?

Can all USB flash drives be used as boot devices if they get the right pre-treatment? Or are there some drives whose hardware makes them not possible to boot from?
8 votes
2 answers
5k views

Is there any way to prevent a USB flash drive from being written to? [duplicate]

I see lots of articles about preventing a specific computer from writing to a USB flash drive or preventing malware from getting from a USB flash drive to a computer; what I can’t find anything for is ...

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