Can a hard drive be used as a flash drive? Ten interesting ways to use a flash drive

Inexpensive Windows PCs, laptops and tablets can often lag when executing commands or opening files. This problem manifests itself most when opening several programs and launching games. This usually happens due to the small amount of RAM.

Today, 2 GB of RAM is not enough for normal computer operation, so users are thinking about increasing it. Few people know that as an option for these purposes you can use a regular USB drive. This is done very simply.

To accomplish this task, Microsoft developed ReadyBoost technology. It allows you to increase system performance using the connected storage device. This feature is available starting with Windows Vista.

Formally, a flash drive cannot be RAM - it is used as a disk on which a paging file is created when there is not enough main RAM. For these purposes, the system usually uses a hard drive. But it has too long a response time and insufficient read and write speed to provide proper performance. But a removable drive has many times better performance, so its use is more efficient.

Step 1: Check Superfetch

First, you need to check whether the Superfetch service, which is responsible for ReadyBoost, is enabled. This is done as follows:

That's all, now you can close all unnecessary windows and move on to the next step.

Step 2: Preparing the Flash Drive

Theoretically, you can use more than just a flash drive. An external hard drive, smartphone, tablet, etc. will do, but you can hardly achieve high performance from them. Therefore, we will focus on a USB flash drive.

It is advisable that this be a free drive with at least 2 GB of memory. USB 3.0 support will be a huge plus, provided that the appropriate connector (blue) is used.

First you need to format it. The easiest way to do it is like this:

You can read about what a flash drive is on many sites. They will also tell you in detail what not to do with it. But how do you know what you can do with it? How about a lesson with a visual demonstration of all points (from A to Z) about working with a flash drive? Let's say that you wish to transfer text from one computer to another (even if the second computer is not connected to the Internet).

And in the second case, a cartoon, in the third case, both. What is most important in the lesson is ALL sequential transfer actions. Original requirement? But this is the only way to show, explain, and protect dunno (a pebble in the garden of beginners who cannot handle it with a flash drive) from unnecessary and unnecessary actions!

There is a lot of information about a flash drive, but there are no specific step-by-step “instructions” for working with a flash drive! But in vain! I am sure that many people have such “difficulties”, but I should write about them. So here's a lesson on working with a flash drive.

This is what a regular flash drive looks like.

Step 1. You insert it intoUSB port(see picture).

Next to this port are usually headphone and microphone jacks.

Here they are, green and pink side by side.

Step 2. Now click “Start”. Then "My Computer". Among the pictures you will see a picture of a removable disk. It can have any name.

The main thing is its visual representation in the picture. For example, "KINGSTON (F:)". In this case, “KINGSTON” means the name of the flash drive manufacturer, and (F:) is the name of the disk.

Step 3. Write information to a flash drive it is possible in at least 2 ways. Let's look at both.

1 way. Let's continue from where we left off.

1. Click on the image of the flash drive with the left mouse button. As a result, its contents will be revealed to you.

2. Select the desired file (text document, music, video, whatever) that you want to copy to the flash drive on your desktop or in any other folder.

3. Now grab it with the left mouse button and drag it to the flash drive folder. You let go.

All. You copied the file to the flash drive!

2. method.

1.Select the file you need to copy to the flash drive.

2. Click on it with the right mouse button.

3. Select “Send”

4. Then select the item with the image of the flash drive. In our example, “KINGSTON (F:)”.

5. That's it, the file has been sent to the flash drive. You can check its presence on the flash drive.

Step 4. The information you have recorded . Now you need to safely remove the flash drive from the computer. To do this, do the following.

That's all. Now you have mastered working with a flash drive. And we are ready to conquer new computer horizons! Good luck with this!

Flash drives are the most popular peripheral devices, perhaps even ahead of mice, which are increasingly being replaced by touchpads and touch displays. The failure of a data storage device is always unpleasant, and sometimes even catastrophic; Fortunately, flash drive failure most often occurs gradually, and warning signs can be noticed in time.

But it is better to take some simple steps that will extend the life of the flash drive.

Do not expose to extreme influences

The first and obvious thing is not to expose the drive to extreme influences:

Strikes
High humidity
Very low or high temperatures
Powerful electromagnetic fields

In practice, this is achieved through careful handling and the use of drives in special cases. In this sense, funny USB flash drives in the form of miniature soft toys are very practical - such flash drives do not break and are highly likely to not suffer from a short exposure to water.

Even better results are shown by extreme models in waterproof rubber shells. Protection from extreme temperatures and high-intensity electromagnetic fields is more difficult, but these effects are much less common. However, when heading to a production workshop with an abundance of transformers or machine tools, it is better to leave the flash drive in another room.

Correct connection of the flash drive

The next rule is to correctly connect and disconnect the flash drive. As for the connection, it is better to avoid using USB hubs with a large number of simultaneously connected devices - this leads to low voltage and failures in writing information to the flash drive. Carefully insert your flash drives into USB connectors without distortion.

Correctly disabling a flash drive

You should disconnect the drive by right-clicking on the tray icon (or in “My Computer”) and selecting “Eject drive”; read more about safely removing a flash drive. Before doing this, you need to make sure that all files and folders on the flash drive are closed.

It is especially important to follow the instructions for removing the drive if it is formatted in the NTFS file system. By the way, using NTFS for flash drives is generally undesirable. NTFS accesses memory cells more often than FAT, and each access contributes to the degradation of flash media.

Correct work with files

For the same reason, it is not recommended to work with files stored on flash drives. It is better to edit documents and watch movies from your hard drive, and copy and read them from a flash drive only when necessary. Although this slightly reduces the usability of the USB flash drive, the lifespan saved will be months, and for heavy users, years.

These three simple rules will help extend the life of your flash drive. Good luck!

Admin 06/15/2014 - 10:13 Tips

Today, the cost of USB flash drives is still quite high. And a drive with a capacity of 128 gigabytes will cost the user approximately 5,000 rubles. In comparison, a 500 GB hard drive (2.5" form factor) will cost in the range of 1500 - 2500 rubles! Naturally, the preferred purchase would be to purchase an external hard drive, or to complete it yourself...

How to assemble an external hard drive?

The benefits of self-configuring the device are obvious. This is not only an individual selection of external and technical characteristics, but also an opportunity to save money by using an existing hard drive.

So in the situation described below, we managed to get by with “little loss.” There is a 320 gigabyte hard drive, which was removed from the laptop due to replacement with a larger device. We buy an additional “box for hard drives” (case, pocket, etc.), which costs very little, from two hundred rubles and more. Next comes the assembly process, which takes 5 to 10 minutes.

If you are unsure of the success of completing the equipment yourself, then you should contact specialists. For example, inquire about the possibility of assembly at the place of purchase, or trust the service center.

Steps to assemble an external hard drive:

Connecting the drive to the computer:

We connect the resulting drive to the computer using the USB cable supplied with the box. We insert one end (micro-USB) into the corresponding connector on the box panel, and one (or two) into the free USB ports of your PC;

If the hard drive used in the drive was previously installed in a laptop, as in our case, then the installation will not require any additional actions. Operating systems of the Windows family older than XP automatically recognize controllers of this type. If you equipped the drive with a new hard drive, then at a minimum you will need to format it (often, no additional actions are required, since the factory hard drive is ready for use after connection).

Most models of boxes for external hard drives are equipped with an indication marked as “LED” (it can display the connection - constant light, or intermittent - reading and writing information). In addition, the box panel may have additional functionality. In our case, this is the “Backup” button, designed to start a backup of the specified directories or files (with the software installed).

P.S.

That's all, it took no more than 15 minutes to start copying data to the assembled disk. I hope you were able to assemble your external hard drive, spending a minimum of time and effort.

updated: 06/25/2016

Do-it-yourself external storage. USB drive from laptop hard drive.

Introduction. Most laptop owners sooner or later face the problem of running out of hard drive space. As a rule, laptops with screen sizes up to 15 inches inclusive do not have a free second slot for a 2.5-inch device. Therefore, owners are forced to think about either replacing the laptop itself or replacing its hard drive. After replacing the hard drive, there is always an old drive left, which can easily be turned into an external USB drive for transferring data. Naturally, you can purchase a mobile 2.5-inch hard drive and turn it into an external drive. Fortunately, the cost of external drives allows this. For example, at the time of writing, for a 250 GB mobile hard drive they are asking $40, and for a 500 GB device from WD they are asking only $45.

We decide on the type of hard drive.

To be fair, it should be noted that an ordinary desktop 3.5-inch hard drive can also be turned into an external drive - you just can’t call it mobile. If you have an unused 2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drive, then first of all you need to decide on the type of its interface.

Today on the market there are the following types of interface: IDE (ATA) and various SATA options. As a rule, all SATA interfaces are backward compatible with each other, and we will not dwell on their variations. The situation is completely different between IDE and SATA interfaces, which are absolutely incompatible with each other and have different connectors.

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The figure shows two hard drives with different interfaces. Hard drives have a mobile format of 2.5 inches. On the left is a hard drive with a SATA interface, on the right is a hard drive with an IDE interface.

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In our hands was a 250 GB hard drive from Western Digital Scorpio Blue series with a SATA interface. This drive was used in an Acer laptop for a long time, but its capacity became insufficient, and it was replaced with a more capacious 500 GB solution.

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Despite long-term use, the performance of the hard drive did not cause any complaints, so it was decided to use it as an external mobile drive. To do this, we had to find an external case for it, which is what we did. External case AGESTAR for 2.5 inch mobile hard drive. Computer hardware stores offer a wide variety of external cases for 2.5-inch hard drives. Their key difference is the following: - the material used to make the case, - the type of external port (interface), - the cost. As a rule, stores offer various cases with a USB 2.0 interface, a much smaller number of cases with an eSATA interface, and even fewer cases with a combination of USB 2.0&eSATA. Several cases with a modern USB 3.0 interface were found on sale, but their cost exceeded the cost of the hard drive itself, so we did not consider them. The key difference between USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces is data transfer speed. Using the USB 2.0 interface allows for maximum compatibility, since these ports are available on all computers. A significant disadvantage of the USB 2.0 interface is its low data transfer speed, which will not allow you to unlock the full speed potential of your hard drive. The eSATA port is more promising, but it is not widespread and is found only in expensive versions of motherboards, cases and laptops. The eSATA interface allows you to fully unleash the potential of SATA devices. The material used can also be very different. In a simple case, it is plastic. In more expensive variations, an aluminum case with a leather cover is included. The cost of external cases also varies. The cheapest option will cost the user $3, expensive versions will cost more than $100.

Buying a $100 case for a hard drive that costs less than $40 when new and is half the price once it's in use is, to say the least, wasteful. Therefore, for testing we were provided with a case costing a symbolic 3 dollars - AgeStar SUB2P1.

Equipment and external inspection of AgeStar SUB2P1.

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We didn't expect any miracles from a device that costs three dollars, both in terms of equipment and in terms of performance. The device comes modestly packaged in a package. The front wall of the device is covered with a cardboard listing the key characteristics of the device. This includes support for 2.5-inch mobile hard drives or solid-state drives with a SATA interface, the presence of a USB 2.0 data transfer interface and various color options.

To be fair, it should be noted that our suppliers confirmed that they had not seen any other color for this case other than black.

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After opening the package, we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the kit included an instruction manual entirely in Russian.

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The case is completely made of plastic. There are paper stickers on the front wall indicating the model, which will be erased in any case, so we recommend immediately removing them from the surface of the device.

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The material used to make the case is soft black plastic, which does not smell of anything and is uniform throughout its structure.

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The covers of the device come off in two different directions, which ensures easy removal and installation of the hard drive in an external case.

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The two sides of the outer case are secured using a plastic latch made from the material of the case. Thanks to the recesses on the walls, the lids are securely fixed and spilling any glass of liquid, or leaving the device in the rain, is unlikely to lead to any problems.

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The device is designed for SATA hard drives, which we have repeatedly emphasized. Inside there are controllers with SATA ports for power and data transfer.

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On the side wall there is a mini USB port for data transfer and power supply to the hard drive. There is no additional port to provide power to the drive, which may cause some problems for users. With a weak power supply that underestimates the voltage along the 5 volt line, you often have to deal with problems starting the hard drive. As a rule, connecting the drive directly to a port on the motherboard, and not on the system unit case, and using a high-quality USB cable allows you to forget about this problem.

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Sellers of computer components often, as an advantage of this or that external case, talk about the presence of a USB data cable in the kit or offer to purchase it separately if it is not there. We advise our users not to pay attention to this, since a mini-USB-USB cable, as a rule, is available in almost every family and is often supplied with mobile phones. In our case, we successfully used a stale data cable from a Nokia mobile phone.

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The next step was to install the hard drive into the case. This is done quite simply - by lightly pressing. The most important thing is to first correctly rotate the hard drive according to the power and SATA data ports located in the case.

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The absence of any protruding elements on the hard drive controller circuit allows you not to worry about its rear surface when transporting and using the device.

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Some users may argue that the plastic case does not provide adequate heat dissipation from the hard drive. Naturally, external cases made of aluminum cope with this task much more effectively. At the same time, we should not forget that mobile hard drives do not have such high power consumption that they suffer from overheating, and in laptops, as a rule, they are not additionally cooled with anything.

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After completing the assembly of the device, the stage of its testing and use begins. The supply of voltage to the device is accompanied by the glow of a blue LED, which also symbolizes the user about the process of data transfer. It should be noted that not everyone will have a smooth start when starting to work with the created external drive. If the hard drive has already been used, has been formatted and partitions have been created on it, you will not have any problems getting started. It works like a regular flash drive using the Plug&Play method. But those users who purchased a new hard drive without formatting and with no partitions will have a problem that will be associated with the absence of a drive letter in the “My Computer” tab.

To do this, you need to create partitions on the hard drive and format it. This can be done through various boot disks, but it’s better not to bother and do it in the Windows operating system itself.

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To do this, you need to go to the "Control Panel" through the "Start" section, then visit the "Administration" section. In this section, select “Computer Management”, where in the “Disk Management” tab you can partition and format the newly connected external drive. After creating partitions and formatting them, you will have access to them through the “My Computer” tab and you will be able to exchange with the drive as with a regular hard drive. Test configuration. The assembled external drive was tested both on a desktop computer based on a modern Core i7 processor and an equally modern motherboard, and on an Acer Aspire 7730 laptop based on a Core 2 Duo processor. It should be noted that the level of performance on two different systems turned out to be comparable.

1. Data reading speed was tested in the HD Tach 3.0.4.0 program

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It is pleasant to note that the external drive we assembled shows a much higher level of performance than the WD My Passport Essential external hard drive we previously tested. The maximum data transfer speed was 34.3 Mb/s, and the average latency was about 17.9 ms.

2. Data reading speed in HD Tune 4.5.

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In the second synthetic test, we received data similar to the previous ones, which also turned out to be slightly better than that of the official external hard drive WD My Passport Essential.

3. Write speed of 64 MB files in HD Tune 4.5.

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Testing that is closer to practice is somewhat more valuable, by recording files of 64 MB in size. In this test, we received quite expected results, which were also limited only by the capabilities of the USB 2.0 interface. Separately, I would like to note that throughout the entire testing, the temperature of the hard drive did not exceed 35 degrees Celsius, while a similar hard drive installed in the laptop had a temperature of about 43 degrees. Therefore, worrying about the operating conditions of the hard drive in this case on the part of users will be unnecessary.

4. Boot speed of the Windows 7 operating system.

During practical testing of the loading speed of the Windows 7 operating system image, we received results similar to other external drives with a USB 2.0 interface.

5. Assessing drive performance in Windows 7 environment.

We tested the performance of the external drive we assembled using the Windows 7 operating system. To do this, in the command line you need to call the command: “winsat disk -drive g -ran -write -count 10”, where “g” is the letter of the tested drive in the system.

From the test results it is clear that the drive we assembled received a much higher rating than the factory solution WD My Passport Essential.

Conclusion. Based on the materials in this article, it is clear that any mobile hard drive can be turned into a good external drive without any hassle. Especially for testing, we asked for the cheapest external case, costing $3. Three dollars allows you to get an excellent external drive from a mobile hard drive, at least for data storage. Not to mention the fact that the same external case makes it easier to recover data from the hard drive of “dead” laptops.

Despite the fact that many people criticize AgeStar's products for their low quality, after many years of using them I have only a positive impression of them. First of all, it is at an affordable price. Defects occur in all manufacturers, although AgeStar has a slightly higher rate than Thermaltake. But the latter has no analogue to the presented external case for three dollars and with a 6-month warranty. We award AgeStar products with a gold medal of honor for their optimal performance/price ratio.

megaobzor.com

Converting a USB flash drive into a hard drive

From a Windows point of view, any flash drive can be easily turned into a natural hard drive. That is, for the operating system, the USB flash drive will be perceived as a regular, fixed disk, and not as an external portable device. Why might this be needed?

This technique is described primarily for those who want to prepare a flash drive for installing Windows 7 from Windows XP using the DISKPART utility. The whole problem is that in Windows XP the DISKPART utility does not see the flash drive at all. Entering the list disk command for DISKPART at least a hundred times is useless: as a result, we will only be shown the available hard drives and nothing more.

Therefore, it is generally impossible to make a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7 from Windows XP using DISKPART.

However, what a blessing - this problem can be solved in a clever way. Namely: we will turn the flash drive into a regular fixed disk. In other words, for Windows XP the flash drive will become another hard drive. And then DISKPART will show the disk we need as cute. Cool? Still would!

This conversion of a flash drive will be useful to you for other purposes, wherever you decide to use a flash drive instead of a removable hard drive.

By the way, are you wondering why the hell DISKPART doesn’t display the flash drive at all? It's all about the RMB (removable media bit) descriptor recorded on each flash drive. It is because of this that Windows XP (and other versions of Windows) perceive a flash drive as a plug-in device (i.e., a removable device). It is enough to delete this descriptor and the flash drive will mutate into a hard drive and will be displayed as a disk in the My Computer window, all file managers and generally everywhere.

A wonderful driver from Hitachi will allow us to do such a trick with our ears. Therefore, first of all, we need to download it, and then modify it.

Download Hitachi driver for USB flash drive

Unpack the driver archive and find the cfadisk.inf file. Let's open it. There's a lot of stuff in the file, but we need one section, it's called .

And it has the main line with which we do street magic. In the file it looks like this:

Now all we need to do is replace the selected part of the recording with the identification data of the flash drive, which we will turn into a hard drive. And then we will change its name.

How to do it? First of all, connect the flash drive to the USB port. Now open Device Manager (for example, select Start > Run, type devmgmt.msc and press the key).

Expand the Disk devices section, right-click on the name of the flash drive and select Properties.

Go to the Details tab. The Device Instance Code menu will immediately open there; this is the code we need. Highlight the code with one left click and press the key combination to save it to the clipboard.

Well, then everything is simple. Open the cfadisk.inf file, find the section, it contains a line that starts with %Microdrive_devdesc% and change the specified value after %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install to the one copied earlier.

In other words, you need to change the line in bold below to the one you copied. Then save the cfadisk.inf file.

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_JETFLASH&PROD_TS1GJF168&REV_0.00\A7B03577C3F1B5&0

Now we change the name of the flash drive. At the very end of the cfadisk.inf file, find the line Microdrive_devdesc = in the section and change the value in brackets to any other. Initially, the value “UsbToFix” is indicated there, you can leave it.

The most important thing remains: install the updated cfadisk.inf driver for our USB flash drive. To do this, click again on the name of the flash drive in the Device Manager window and select Update Driver.

The Hardware Update Wizard window will open. Now step by step.

In the first window, select the No, not this time radio button and click the Next button.
Select the Install from a specified location radio button and click Next.
Select the Don't search radio button. I'll select the driver I need and click Next.

Click the Have Disk button.
In the Install from Disk window, click the Browse button and select the driver folder where the cfadisk.inf file is located.
Windows will ask if you really want to install the driver, click the Continue installation button and then click Finish.

Now it's done and the flash drive has turned into a hard drive, hooray. Disconnect it, connect it again and format it. And now look: instead of a portable device icon, the flash drive will be displayed as a hard drive.

Well, that’s all, the flash drive has successfully turned into a hard drive, and now it will become available to the DISKPART utility, and maybe you will find other uses for it.

windata.ru

How to connect a hard drive to USB

Let's say you upgraded your laptop and replaced some parts with more powerful, capacious and faster ones. Everything is great, but you still have old parts that are still quite functional and it’s a shame to throw them away. Of course, you can sell them online or give them away for free. But among them there is a little thing that may still be useful, and this is a hard drive.

Nowadays, it’s hard to surprise anyone with a flash drive. These miniature products have become so firmly established in our daily lives that it is now very difficult to do without them. This is especially true for students who simply need such devices to submit coursework, essays and other purposes. What is a flash drive? Only a lazy person cannot answer this question.

The modern market is literally flooded with a variety of models. Many companies can offer original designs, as well as smaller versions of flash drives. And so much so that you can’t help but wonder if it’s really a flash drive or something else?

What is a flash drive?

Many people know that with the help of a small device you can transfer a variety of text electronic documents, music compositions and video files from one computer to another. But not everyone clearly understands what it is.

A flash drive is a removable device for transferring or storing information. What is typical is that there are no moving parts inside the USB flash drive, which provides it with a high level of reliability. To record data for the purpose of further distribution or storage, a file system is used (usually FAT32 or NTFS).

In this case, it is more correct to pronounce not a flash drive, but a USB flash drive. What strengths does she (or he) have? More on this below.

Obvious advantages

Easy operation. It is much easier to transfer any information to a USB flash drive than to a CD. To record it, you cannot do without the help of specialized software. In addition, you don't need a disk drive to open a flash drive.
Unlike floppy disks, which were discussed above, as well as disks, USB flash drives are more reliable.
Reusable. No matter how many GB a flash drive has, the rewrite cycles can number several thousand, which is not so bad.
Price. It is worth noting that prices for flash drives are only decreasing every year due to model updates and increased volume. And now the simplest USB drive costs less than $5.
Compact dimensions: USB flash drives are produced in small sizes and are light in weight.
Appearance. Many manufacturers try to surprise users by giving USB drives an original design.

Among other things, it is pleasant to work with modern models of flash drives, since they have a high write speed, unlike optical disks - up to 20 megabytes per second, or even more.

Due to this, the entire copying process to a USB drive takes several minutes, depending on the amount of information.

Some disadvantages

When examining the question of what a flash drive is, one cannot ignore the existing shortcomings. For some, some of them may seem insignificant. But among all, a significant disadvantage is the service life. The number of entries and deletions is not infinite. But in the end, it may well be enough for a period of 5 to 10 years. In this case, the recording speed will gradually decrease.

The flash drive cannot work when wet. Although this drawback is no longer significant, since it means connecting it after taking a shower. But if you let it dry thoroughly before doing this, the device will be able to work properly.

Typically, USB drives are sold with a protective cap, which is often lost. Of course, this cannot be considered a serious shortcoming, and the whole point is inattention on the part of users. Nevertheless, a precipitate remains, because you can come up with some kind of chain. Although miniature models are also easy to lose, and this is serious, especially if they are not cheap. There is no time to understand what a flash drive is.

A wide range of

The modern market can offer a great variety of flash drives from a variety of manufacturers. In this case, the housing of the storage media can be made of different materials:

plastic;
rubber;
metal

Metal drives are more expensive, but at the same time, unlike their plastic counterparts, they are highly reliable. To damage the case, you need to try hard.

Rubber flash drives may appeal to active users. Such devices are distinguished by high impact-resistant and waterproof properties. Plastic storage devices can be a wonderful gift for some occasion - birthday, New Year and other pleasant occasions.

Using flash drives

Any user who knows what a flash drive is will not be surprised by the fact that with the advent of CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs, floppy disks have lost their relevance, although not completely. But despite their decline, they have not yet completely gone out of use, and to this day several million copies are sold every year. According to most analysts, these storage media will be used for several more years. At least until the cost of flash drives and floppy disks becomes equal.

USB drives are not affected by this! And the point is not that every computer or any other similar device has a corresponding connector. A flash drive can be used not only for transferring or storing various files, it can be easily used for other purposes. For example, you can use it to install an operating system. We will talk about how to do this.

What is bootable media?

We know what a USB drive is, but what is a bootable flash drive? There are times when you need to install an operating system, but there is no disk drive at all (this applies to many netbooks) or it does not work. Then a special bootable USB device will come in handy. This is a kind of “lifeline” for any user.

Bootable media can be useful in cases where the system crashes or the computer stops booting. It will allow the system to boot quietly in order to fix problems. After which Windows will work properly as before.

Ways to create a boot device

To decide how to make a flash drive bootable, you can use several methods:

Supported by UltraISO software.
Using the command line.
Using the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
Using the Rufus utility.

All of these methods are easy to do. It’s just worth clarifying that if the bootable media is made using different utilities, then you will need an image of the operating system, preferably in ISO format. And for it to fit on a flash drive, its volume must be at least 4 GB.

The image should be prepared in advance using the same UltraISO program or any other appropriate type. Then let it be stored on the hard drive, which will save the optical media with the operating system, which is prone to scratches with frequent use.

After creating a bootable USB flash drive, you must set the initial boot from a USB device in the BIOS.

Using UltraISO

Using this program, you can create and edit various images, but in our case, its slightly different capabilities will be useful. The first thing you need to do is download the software, preferably from the official website, and install it. You need to run the program with administrator rights, for which you can right-click on its shortcut and select the appropriate item.

The program has a Russian-language menu, which is very convenient. First of all, you need to connect the flash drive to the USB connector, and then you can launch UltraISO. After that, click on “File” and then “Open”. Then you need to specify the path where the operating system image is located, select it, and then click the “Open” button.

Next, you need to go to the “Boot” menu and select “Burn hard disk image.” A window will appear in which you need to check the settings. In the Disk Drive section, the desired device must be selected; where the recording method is, USB-HDD+ must be selected. At the same time, check whether the image is selected for creating a bootable USB flash drive.

Now all that remains is to click on the “Record” button, which will start formatting, and answer affirmatively to the message that appears. This process deletes all data! Finally, a window will appear indicating the success of the recording. That's all - the flash drive is ready.

Command line help

You can prepare a flash drive for installing the operating system using Windows itself. What is required can be launched in different ways:

"Menu" - "Start" - "Programs" - "Accessories" - "Command Line".
Press the Win+R key combination (or “Menu” - “Start” - “Run”), enter cmd in the empty field of the window.

As a result, a black window will appear, which is what you want. In it you need to type diskpart and press Enter. This key is pressed after each command entered. Now, actually, the instructions for creating a bootable flash drive:

Enter list disk - a numbered list of all connected disks to the computer will be displayed.
Enter select disk X - instead of X you need to substitute the number that corresponds to the flash drive (2 or 3, or 4 and so on).
Enter the clean command - the media will be cleaned.
Now we need another command - create partition primary - a partition is created.
Enter select partition 1 - the created partition will be selected.
The following text, active, activates the selected section.
After this, you will need to enter format fs=NTFS - the formatting process in the NTFS system will start. It takes some time, so you will have to be patient.
You can now leave DiskPart mode by entering the Exit command.

The main part is done, after that you need to copy the Windows files to a flash drive, and in the same form as it was on the installation disk.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

This utility was created by Microsoft, which is responsible for releasing operating systems of the Windows family. It comes in handy for creating bootable media. First, you need to download the program from the Microsoft website and install it on your computer.

You must also run the program with administrator rights (how to do this was described above). Then do the following:

Click Browse, select the desired operating system image and click Next.
Now you need to select USB device.
At this step, you will need to select your flash drive from the entire list of devices (usually it should already be selected). Then click Begin copying.

The formatting process will start, after which the necessary files will begin to be copied to the flash drive.

Mobile assistance represented by Rufus

To install different versions of Windows from a flash drive, the Rufus utility can be useful. This program does not need to be installed on your computer; it starts working immediately after downloading. Setting up a bootable USB drive with it is not difficult, just follow these steps:

Connect the flash drive to the computer, and it should be selected in the “Device” utility field.
Make sure that the “Create boot disk” checkbox is checked below.
If necessary, you can uncheck the “Quick Format” option, only in this case the process will take some time.
Click on the floppy disk icon and select the prepared operating system image.
Click on the “Start” button.

Formatting will start, but before that the program will notify you that all data will be destroyed. Click OK and wait for the bootable media to be created.

The listed methods for installing an operating system from a flash drive are easy to implement. However, the USB drive needs to be used correctly. Then Windows can be installed, and other files will be safe.

Correct use of flash drives

It’s not enough to choose a flash drive; you need to use it correctly. To do this, you should adhere to basic rules:

It is not recommended to remove the connected flash drive immediately after copying files. Safe extraction must be used. Otherwise, damage to the file system cannot be avoided, which can only be corrected by formatting, and this is a guaranteed deletion of information.
An infected flash drive should always be treated.
As experts advise, it is better to change the drive every 2-3 years, since the cost allows you to do this.
Try to avoid impacts and prevent flash drives from falling, as well as immersing them in water.

If it is impossible to carefully connect a flash drive to your computer for various reasons, you should take a closer look at devices in a protected case.

When choosing, you should not take into account active advertising, since any quality product does not need it!

In conclusion

To ensure that choosing a flash drive does not turn into a headache, you need to choose the device wisely. You should not be guided only by the big name of some popular brand. Without a doubt, many companies can offer quality products. But only those manufacturers who have stood the test of time deserve trust. In this case, you can be sure that the purchased drive will last for a long time.

It is also worth considering that you can infect your computer through a flash drive. And to avoid this, you must use licensed anti-virus software!