Flash Drive

[sharlmitch]

Is anyone familiar with a USB Flash Drive? My son gave me one for mother's day and I can't find much info on how to use it. Orher than plugging it in.

Thanks, Sharon

[GaryK]

Hi Sharon

That is pretty much it.

Once you have plugged it in, if a popup window does not show up. Go to MY Computer and you should have another drive showing up.

Basically these are replacing, or have replaced, floppies as a quick, easy and convieniant file transfer method.

Hope this helps.

[Rusty]

Hi Sharon,

If you have a Mac, stop reading - I have no idea what Macs do. If you have a PC, plug the drive into any open USB port; the following should happen.

1. you get a "ding" sound
2. Elements downloader might open and start looking for images to download (mine does) - just click "stop"
3. Go to Windows Explorer and click My Computer, in addition to the usual A:, C: and D: drives, you should see a new location -- E: Removable Disk (maybe it will be some letter other than E - doesn't matter, whatever)

You can write files to this drive or copy files from My Documents/My Pictures/whatever. When you are finished with it, click the little icon down in the lower right corner toolbar of your Desktop, "Safely Remove Hardware". When you get the pop-up, highlight the flash drive; in a few seconds you'll get another pop-up telling you OK.

The next time you plug the drive in, there are your files. I find them very handy for traveling. I'm leaving for a 2-week visit to my son in a few weeks. If my camera memory card starts filling up, I'll use his PC to download images to a 2GB flash drive and then delete from the SD Card.

Obviously, you can also use them for back up but how effective that will be depends on the capacity of the drive you have.

Rusty

PS - Gary types faster than I do

[GaryK]

Rusty

I only type faster because I wasn't as detailed.

[sharlmitch]

Thanks guys, great directions!

I have things on there now but how do I know if I have Elements so if I want to work on my pictures somewhere else? And how do I remove something?

This is so great to be able to take things with you, I had no idea what a flash drive was. I've just put my pictures onto a cd but then you have no program to work on.

I'm gonna love it!!!!

Sharon

[Rusty]

Sharon, it's not "like a CD", you haven't burned anything to the drive. It is dynamic -- that is, just like My Pictures or any other folder on your C: drive, it is "active". Highlight a "file" (image, document, whatever) and click "Delete" -- Shazam, it's gone.

When I visit my Son, I know he does not have Elements on his PC so I can't "work on them". But I know he has a Nikon camera so whatever method he is using to download his pictures will work for me -- all I have to do us change the destination to my flash drive (whatever letter his PC assigns to it when i plug it in)

You are not going to have a flash drive with enough capacity to load Elements. Use the flash drive just to hold files/images, not programs. You could, for example, take a flash drive loaded with images, plug it into somebody's PC and, just like in My Pictures on your home computer, there they are for viewing.

Rusty

[sharlmitch]

It says "Take your files plus U3 compatible PC programs wherever you go."

So what is compatible with Elements?
This is SanDisk Cruzer Micro 2.0GB U3smart Whatever that means.

[quillabee9]

The flash drives are getting less expensive all the time. And so convenient. I saw one with 8GB. Soon they are going to be one of my main storage periphals.

[Chuck S.]

I have USB drives from the beginning of (USB drive) time. They range from a small of 128 MB to a current highest 2 MB. And yes, the prices continue to go down.

I've found that the ones that have the fancy software for using "compatible software programs" are more trouble than they're worth; some systems won't recognize them. A plain old USB "thumb" drive with no drivers of any kind is my recommendation.

I never leave home without at least one!