5 things you didn't know your USB Flash Drive could do! 

Lol my first computer had a 10Mb HDD and 256kb of RAM, I guess we are both showing our age, I did a course on word processing and think I was in the first year of high school where typing wasn't offered, at about, I think, year 8 (14yo). 5.25" floppy disk was by then the norm, the 3.5" 1.44Mb didn't come out until I was in my 20's! I pity kids of today who really don't live through much in the way of invention, mostly just upgrades to old inventions.

so much has changed in our lifetimes and it's awesome in my opinion.

I’m keeping my mouth shut about the whole age thing. Lol

My first computer had no hard drive but used cassette tape to store programs and data. RAM was 1kb. Yes, that's right, a whole kilobyte.

@@KrazeeKraftZ WOW! first computer was amazing compared to mine, which had 32K (not megabytes) of RAM… NO hard drive and a cassette tape to save your data to. 😝

Agreed, especially with all the censorship going on right now. They could easily delete all your files at any given time

Correct ✔

@@TheZombiesAreComing Or if their business model is poor, and they go belly up.

Agreed. I didn't agree with them being obsolete. Because of the cloud? some people like having data saved and stored on a small, incredibly portable device. It doesn't get any easier or more compact. No internet connection, no Google sign in. Just raw data organized and ready to go.

Eh.... Who said they were obsolete?

"I've worked in IT for over 20 years" Which of these things did you not know about? Let's be honest, any use the involves using the drive exactly as intended such as storing files, is literally what the drives are for.

@@james0000 Did you really not understand his comment, or are you misreading it deliberately?

@@Twirlip2 Some of these ideas are new to you?!

@@james0000 You can't possibly be making the same mistake twice, so it must be deliberate. How tiresome.

@@Twirlip2 You are correct. It's tiresome and bothersome dealing with nitwits like you. I'll just presume all of these ideas are new to you as well as to @Whelp, There it is, despite most of them being the exact purpose of the flash drives from the very start. Oh well. "Excellent set of 5 functional options for old flash drives." LOL

Exactly. My banking accounts information, various subscriptions usernames and passwords, etc, are stored in a flash drive. If/when I need to retrieve them, the drive is read in a non-networked computer.

@@coriscotupi Ah, so you're airlocking it...Smart.

Same. I'm always surprised that I don't seem to see anyone else doing the same.

Didn’t even think about it! ❤️❤️❤️

Can you please explain how exactly are you playing music in your vehicle via flashdrive?

@@salcanzonieri Ford vehicles have 2 USB ports, I just upload my music in mp3 format to the drive, plug it to the truck and select it as the audio source.

Verizon gives me free Apple Music for life

Once 1TB flash drives come out you can carry a significant part of your digital game collection on your key chain

​@@KhanGarth isn't the future of portable storage cool???😀😀😀

@@josephcontreras8930 yeah it’s getting pretty crazy for sure. storage capacity growth appears to be outpacing the average size that games tend to be by a wide margin. So like in my above illustration, before long a console player could bring every digital game they own to play at a friends house on their key ring

@@KhanGarth that would be great

@@KhanGarthKingston made a 1tb flash drive 11 years ago

I'd love to know more about that.

A better option is to use Ventoy. Then you can put multiple ISO's on a single thumb drive.

Same 🤝

Frl😂 I'll use anything over cloud

Ok

The cloud can stop your storage and delete it at anytime because they want to. Flash drives don’t have opinions

Based

USB drives sure come in handy. I've had to take them places where I can show proof in photos and documents.

Why not just keep it on your phone?

@@-_James_- More fragile I guess?

@@-_James_- I use my phone for that same but I guess that having on a extra USB drive is just a extra level of security in case your phone is unavailable

Don't forget about extra RAM FOR YOUR CPU!

and thank YOU for hanging out here!

Same here, only I have more!👍 Back when most Linux 32 bit ISO's would fit onto a CD, the 4GB sized ones were perfect for the job. Plus could install Windows 7 or Vista clean by creating media, no longer is 4GB large enough for this task any longer, need 8GB or larger. And by booting into memory, these USB sticks were MUCH faster than running on a PATA (or IDE) HDD. Anyway, want a Linux Mint (or your favorite distro) on the go? A 16GB USB stick is perfect for most & for those who still runs Puppy Linux, 4GB is a lot. This means one can run this on most ANY computer (fast boot & Secure Boot MUST be turned off & CSM enabled if UEFI based). Great thing, no matter who the PC belongs to, even if Windows is infected to the point of not being able to boot, your portable Linux distro will. This includes some rescue media designed to update & scan the hard drive or SSD. Have had only ONE USB drive go bad on me & that was a 16GB off brand model, still lasted 3-4 years. Have several SanDisk 4GB models that came long before SATA-1 drives for the masses, back when these were on promo for $5-6. Some has a useful utility to encrypt the drive, no added tools needed. Could be cleaned for other usage, just save the encryption exe. file (or download from the OEM) & ready to be reused for it's intended purpose again. BTW, can do the same thing with (most) SD/SDHC cards used in cameras, when inserted into a USB adapter. Backup or partition rescue media would easily load onto the 1GB SD cards which were standard for many digital cameras, after upgrading to a larger one.

Yup, right now I'm using a 64 gig usb stick with Ubuntu mate installed.

I have one stick that can boot 16 versions of Puppy Linux, why? Because I could. Yes I have a few others with linux

i love arch linux

Seemingly every usb stick I own has a distro on it. Kinda frustrating when I want to put another distro on one 🤣

Glad to help

Love the Data Traveler drives. I have 3 of em!

I boot to my own os on work computers. If my boss complains then I know they have monitoring software setup on their systems.

@@PhilLesh69 Most places does in order to prevent the employees from messing around on the job.

Appreciate you being here 🔥

My words exactly !

@@deedewald1707 thank you for hanging out here 👍

@@Kierispet159 Did you watch the video? 2:05

Your friends, our friends, and loved ones have been programmed to use the cloud. It is convenient but mental to not have your data backed up and in your possession (IMO). Flash Drives should never be seen as outdated anytime soon.

The cloud is pretty neat but you'd have to be an idiot to rely on it and put everything on there, personally i use it to keep non sensitive stuff that i may need to access when away from home. Probably one advantage cloud has over local storage (other than ease of access) is for local disasters like flooding or your house burning down where all your hardrives and usb sticks may be destroyed, but thats still less of a risk than simply keeping everything on the cloud

Q

About three years ago I found a box in my basement with an Iomega zip drive and about a dozen cartridge/discs. I was tempted to see if I could still plug it in and use it without any special drivers or software. It was next to the box where I store my old DVD burner with the lightscribe label writing feature. Lol.

@@PhilLesh69 lol, I remember the ZIP drive very well. I used the external models and the internal models that would mount inside the case. Between the two, I remember the external one more because it was blue and sat on top in plain view. I remember the special drivers including a special icon for the drive in Windows too. It's been a long time since 100MB was a decent amount of space for a removable disk. I also remember lightscribe labels, but never really used them all that much. I normally just got out the sharpie to label the discs but I did sometimes get printable labels and use them too. Thinking about the crazy word art and lame backgrounds I would put on those things takes me back. lol

Haha, I remember getting one of the first flash drives like 128 mb or less then months later I saw one being used in a Bond or similar move and as Hollywood does making a really big deal about it, like wawa wooeeee Look what we have and you don't. And I was like pfft, lame! I've got a few of these in my vehicle and at home.

I just found all three types of Iomega Zip and Syquest drives and disks in an old leather computer bag in the back of my closet! All unused! Off to eBay!

Hi from brasil. could u make a video? like a tutorial about that?

That is true, and pretty much works, though you do need to format the drive at least once to install ventoy into it, then copy whatever you need (OS installs, personal files, etc). I've had people just not try ventoy cuz you still have to format at least once. BUT - for some niche or otherwise a bit more specific operating systems, by my testing it doesn't really work flawlessly. I tried android x86 iso on it, and basically it just straight up barely functioned, and installing it directly was a no go since it didn't even recognize other drives besides the usb the iso was on. Otherwise windows just works, most (at least more popular) linux distros work, so I doubt it is any trouble.

Appreciate the note about Ventoy (not ventoy). I'll check it. I've been using WinSetupFromUSB for mmmany years and it's really cool because it allows many ISOs also, but differently.

Update: Hmm, Ventoy seems to not function so well with ISOs that have been modified. So, if you rebuild Windows 7 or 11...this might fail for you - currently. It did for me. I hope that's changed, as Ventoy is a great idea.

Rus, Easy2Boot etc, these applications are many

Appreciate you being here 🔥

Read the instructions on the hirens website and you wont need a video...

@@sahhull 1 there are videos for hirens on RU-vid 2 I made the suggestion so this video creator had ideas for more tutorials to make

Thank you kindly!

Glad it was helpful!

Always!

I knew about it from 2002😉

Yea I A agree about the HIREN MADE ME ALOT OF MONEY BUT I ONLY ABLE TO FIX WINDOWS XP IS THERE A NEWER VERSION I GOT 15.1

Hiren's sounds a lot like XtraPC flash-drive. I bought one awhile back to fix my Mother's laptop, I think it boots a Lenox directory. The laptop"s boot drive was erased and wouldn't come on, the flash-drive worked, it allowed me access to the cmd. It still works today

>drag the whole thing onto the computer so it runs faster, then securely delete it later You can't be sure you're "securely deleting" stuff from someone else's computer. Even if it's your own there's no real guarantee you're really overwriting anything either. _"No, but this program says it overwrites three times brah!"_ No. Windows doesn't always listen, the filesystem doesn't listen, the hard drive even remaps (moves) sectors around secretly, there's no guarantee you're really overwriting anything.

@@user-ut9ln4vd5mMr extreme

Would you know if I can put my e books on a flash drive.

@@theresajurrus6307 You might be able to. I'm not that up on E books but it's probably just text so likely it wouldn't take up much space. If the book is heavy on illustrations it'll take up more space. You can get some pretty beefy flash drives though. An E book might have some kind of copyright nonsense on it , not sure, but space wise I think you could do it.

@@theresajurrus6307 You can store them on the flash drive. You have to download them to your computer [by opening them with the appropriate app] then simply copy the file to the flash drive. You might not be able to read them from the flash drive. You may have to copy them into the device you want to read them on. Possibly, a portable reader app on the flash drive would make it possible to read them from directly from the drive.

Yes regardless of Carbonite and Drive, I have all my PowerPoints (the core of my business) on a flash drive, especially the morning of a big webinar if I am gong to suffer from Windows 10 Disease at the last moment.

that's scary. if you lose it or your drive becomes unreadable all of a sudden, you lose all your passwords and usernames

@@utubestalker.dotcom You're right, but I thought about several years ago and have 3 drives with that info, and surely all 3 won't go bad at the same time? :) I hope not anyway, other than hand writing them down on paper, so long as no one knows where that paper is there can't be a safer place. Of course, I'm only thinking of another computer of sorts or the cloud.

Great point!

Be careful about "finding" them. Sick people leave them laying around to find with a root virus to destroy or snoop your computer and phone home! Don't use it, or run it in a sandbox for a FULL wipe.

To add to what solarsynapse said, there are also devices that look like USB drives that destroy computers. They charge up on the power pins and then send a high voltage shock down the data pins, frying the CPU. There is hardware that protects from this, but it’s rare to find PC with it installed.

same, 10 years ago I found 8GB one in snow after winter and it worked for couple of years before it died, back then it was usuable space, but today 8GB is nothing :D

I worked in an office next door to Lafayette Square (in front of the white house) and used to see usb flash drives laying around all over the place. I even watched uniformed secret service officers stoop down and pick them up and pocket them. My boss and I were having a smoke in front of our building and he picked one up and we took it upstairs and connected it to an old pc we were about to shred the drive on and inspected it. It had canary tokens and all kinds of trojan/keylogging junk on it, and we traced an email connected to one of the tokens to a guy in toronto. We handed it over to the security at the federal appeals court next door because it looked like they were targeting a judge on the appellate court.

Hello, what portable website do you use?

@@henryigwe4560 Sorry, Do you mean where do I get them from?

@@wlessfanable Yes Sir?

Thanks and welcome

Appreciate you being here 🔥

Usb-c isn't necessarily faster than usb-a, that's just a form factor. What really counts is whether it's USB-2.0 or USB-3.0 or higher. Type A can come in any speed. Type C usually is 3.0 standard or higher, but not always.

Haha, I came to the comments just to mention this and saw you caught it as well. He said "even if it won't turn on".... uh, yeah, don't think a USB boot disk is going to help you with that one, lol

Reminds me of setting up a PC for our boss to do his presentation at a conference. One of my co-workers, a self-proclaimed expert, couldn't get the machine to do anything, and kept announcing lots of obscure things that he should check. (I think that was mostly to impress the boss how much he knew about PCs.) I saw the power cord lying on the stage floor, so I plugged it in and, of course, the PC started up right away. My co-worker asked me in an astonished voice, "What did you do to fix it?" I said someone had given me some useful advice: "When there's a problem, look for horses, not zebras."

The websites for the programs all include detailed instructions.

Uh...why? Impportant docs go on cloud

Usb drives can get compromised, they can get corrupted by a virus or just using them too long. I have a few that I can no longer use because they have years of usage

truth i use them still like crazy

@@laurasteyn1939 sure that's also important, but there is also a time when there is no internet connection and you need to edit the important docs before printing it out to your teacher or lecturer or even your boss

Flash drives wear out so you’re wrong.

I remember them being invented. I also remember mainframes like the IBM System 7. That was when programmers were efficient because every single bit was valuable. Now software is mostly bloated garbage.

@@solarsynapse Bloated garbage with access to certain permissions attached to your devices.

I'm old enough too remember floppies being everywhere and still being on every computer desk in racks and draws but never actually being used, they were obsolete and completely replaced by cd's when i was a kid but because so many were made they were still everywhere. Made great ninja stars

@@archygrey9093 Me too. In those days anyone with a computer must have had boxes of them. I also remember being able to buy blank ones at at store that sold any computer stuff. Now I don't know if anyone still makes them.

Before there were hard drives it was necessary to boot from a floppy after inserting it into the floppy disk drive. It was DOS. "Disk" Operating System.

I still use my MP3 player as an MP3 player.

Still hve my sandisk sansa (1GB model got stolen, got a 512MB model as a replacement). Also have a 256MB model. FM Tuner, voice recorder, USB flash drive too (mini USB cable, however can adapt it with mini to USB-C adapters, or go to a shop and get the port swapped for microUSB).

It would be safer to have a qr code, barcode or a short web url that links directly to your medical data on the cloud which is encrypted using a key that only authorized emergency responders can access. I just wrote a "back of the napkin business plan" for a lucrative medical technology business venture. Lol.

it's weird how your ✌sticks up over the Read more by 1 pixel

I thought the same immediately, and what I would do IF I was to carry medical information, is I would carry a computing device as well. For $30, you can get a portable music and video player, that works like a USB via a cable and has its own memory as well as a slot for a Micro SD card. Not a way to reuse you OLD sticks, but a great medical security tool. They can record speech, play txt files, mp3 music, and depending on the device like my Ruizu M8, also mp4 video without being ANY more expensive. However it may be difficult to know which device CAN play video. On the other hand, if you HAVE old USB media players, they typically CAN carry any kind of data, even if they only play music. Same is true for the internal memory of a digital camera, usually a detachable SD card, unless they utilize some very involved formatting. These might be helpful jsut as backup locations for you to preserve any useful information, in case your phone gets stolen for instance. Or, if you're unresponsive and unidentified, the police would get involved and the first thing they'd look is something like camera data, or a tiny 512 MB USB device. Even I personally have equipment ready for scanning things like potentially USB malware designed to permanently destroy a PC.

Another possibility is to store the data an old Android phone (configured without a password). The battery might go bad after a while though.

Considering the amount of critically important and sensitive data hospitals have on their computers this concern is not unwarranted even if they know and trust you, if your own pc is infected then depending on the type of virus you could unwittingly spread it to theirs too. That is actually how the original computer viruses spread before the internet, via floppy disk sharing.

AKA "Sneaker wear network." We did this with 3.5 plastic floppies. Then we did this with CDRoms. Then we did this with DVDS.

@@briandsatterfield "Sneakernet"

Could not do much with a paper. 5-3/4 soft floppy floppy. They held only 360k !

Ive got readable DVD-r and writable CD's from 25 years ago. Stored in a box in a dark cupboard. USB drives seem to die when not used for a while.

DVDs/CDs are EMP-proof. Flash drives are not.

Wow how can i use 1 of my usb flashdrives as ram for my computer please?

Not really. They tried that in the Windows Vista era (Readyboost) but it's rarely helpful on modern computers. The problem is that by modern standards, old USB flash drives are *really slow*, comparable to HDD in IOPS and worse for sequential throughput. Also, the USB connection and the drives themselves tend to be unreliable. So you're better off either upgrading the internal storage or attaching a modern external drive.

The "cloud" is just somebdy else's computer!

That is why you encrypt everything before you upload it to the cloud.

@@nemesis2264 yeah but no need to encrypt anything with a pen drive you can carry with yourself or hide somewhere. Clouds are practical, but pen drives and external hard disks won't die easily.

@@brujo_millonario I only use the cloud for a few specific things but still encrypt everything. I also use flash drives but also encrypt them as well because if you lose an unencrypted drive anyone can view your data.

@@nemesis2264 well it also depends on the kind of data. If it's a few invoices of two years ago it's one thing; if you got the cure for cancer, who killed JFK and the location of Jimmy Hoffa's body, then you'd definitely encrypt your files!

Uhhh who doesn't have any SSD lol. They cost the same as a flash drive now.

@@renegade_patriot i still use hdd

@@zhetesteur3654 Me too. One slot for SSD on Motherboard, but 12 partitions on 5 external HDDs! Not all games need the speed of an SSD. Even games that say they need an SSD, like Cyberpunk 2077, don't actually need one!

Glad you like them!

They plug into USB ports and work just like disks. For something like a utility disk you have to make it bootable.

@@writerpatrick If this guy doesn't know how pendrives work, then he has no idea how discs works.

Just plug it in the usb port. And it'll pop up in folders. But be careful, you have no idea what those random pendrives contain, could be malware. So probably scan it first.

@@unliving_ball_of_gas - I know where to put the stick, just don't know how to put stuff on them? - I'm not computer savvy & I've got no Family or friends to help

@@unliving_ball_of_gas - buzz off

Snowden said thing he does with a new is disconnect the microphone. When he needs to make a call he uses a bluetooth headset.

glad to help!

Exactly the comment I was looking for. This is what I fear because I just had a 256 gb SanDisk USB drive asking me to format it out of nowhere so I lost everything on it because there was no way to access the USB. I'm just glad it didn't have important photos.

well spotted. yes your completely correct. the life time of a magnetic hard drive is around double of a solid state drive like ssd ubs sd cards ect. the advantage of solid state drives is there speed.

@@jesseclutterbuck6617 backup is a process not a device

I do that too. I have them on me for those times when you need to access them in an emergency or when you don't know if there will be internet access.

Or send a copy to a friend or relative via email.