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Corrupt a USB Drive Without Properly Ejecting – Not Likely, Here’s Why

If you yank out a USB drive from your computer, do you think it hurts the stick or could damage the drive?  No it doesn’t.  Well, it’s possible, but not probable.  The reason why is that Windows updated their removal policy for mass storage devices a long time ago.

eject USB drive

To mitigate the likelihood of data loss in surprise removal scenarios, Windows XP refined the caching policy for removable storage. As of Windows XP Beta 2, for consumer-oriented removable storage (USB, Flash, Zip, and so on), write caching is disabled by default. This means the write process happens immediately and when the Windows dialogue box shows complete…it’s really complete. In the past, Windows would buffer the data first, then write.  So if you pulled out the storage device there was a good chance Windows was still writing to the drive.  That’s when you get a corrupted drive.  So Window’s changed Continue Reading

Winner – USB Steampunk Award

If, GetUSB.info had an award for best Steampunk drive, this would get it.  Set in a nice wood case, this Steampunk USB drive is riddled with over 30 mechanical parts from six different watches.  Some parts are from watches that are over 100 years old.

USB steampunk

The 16GB hand crafted USB Steampunk also holds 26 Ruby gems which catch the light from different angles.  When the stick is plugged in the standard green LED illuminates and also creates a nice look.  Unfortunately no picture of it connected. This prize winning Steampunk took nearly 12 hours to complete…and looks fantastic.  What do you think? Continue Reading

F The DIY Solar Powered iPhone Charger – Just Buy One

Today I was doing some research for a good solar powered iPhone charger.  I went the direction of a DIY [Do It Yourself] project then realized this is all a waste of time.  Maybe there are a select few that would jump on a DIY solar powered iPhone charger project, but considering the complexity of the tutorials I found, very very unlikely my average reader would actually do it. So to save yourself the 30+ minutes of looking for a good tutorial, just spend 3 minutes and buy one that will A) work better, B) look better and C) be cheaper.

solar powered iphone charger

The project directions can be found here and you’ll quickly see it’s a complex project that requires some tools you might not have, plus supplies you’ll surely need to buy.  All in all, it’s about a $70 project, Continue Reading

USB Tutorial: Charge Any USB Gadget With Your Bike

The world is going Green.  This is your chance to keep those USB gadgets, yet charge them without consuming electricity and leaving your carbon footprint.  The idea behind this USB tutorial is taking the kinetic energy of your bike and turn that into re-powering any USB gadget.

recharge USB

I found this fun little project off the Instructables website.  Apparently the author received some grant funds from Lemelson-MIT program and put together a team of 6 students to create this solution. The team got their idea from shake-up flashlights which are based off the Faraday Principle – which is a type of electromagnetism reaction to generate energy. You will need to get a bread-board and create a small circuit to capture the energy produced by the bike and turn it towards your USB gadget.

USB recharge bike

Next, you’ll need a motor provider that will actually “capture” the energy, feed it through your newly made circuit.  There are many options for this, check Continue Reading

Wireless USB Connects to iPhone

How would you like to connect wirelessly to your iPhone?  Imagine sharing your photo’s or [soon to be] video with your TV or monitor without a cable?  How about sync your iTunes without the white USB connector, or update contacts, schedules, calendar and more without making a connection.  How about getting real crazy and juicing up your iPhone without a plug?

wireless USB for iPhone

Well, all of this will be possible with the new Alereon wireless USB technology for the iPhone and those who integrate into their peripheral.
The demonstration consists of a small wireless USB peripheral connected to a typical iPhone or iPod’s edge connector. The adapter enables any iPhone or iPod to both provide extra battery power/charging as well as synchronize wirelessly to iTunes whether on a Windows or MAC OS machine. Future enhancements will enable connectivity to HDTVs for displaying photos or videos.
The ultimate vision of Alereon is to have a peripheral device integrated into Continue Reading

USB Wrist Watch Almost Sounds Like Good Idea

Some things sound better on paper than real life.  Take, for example, this stylish wrist watch that doubles as a USB storage device.  First, it is so clever, you always need a watch, you always need your USB drive, put the two together and it’s a perfect match.

usb wrist watch

Aaaah, but wait, there is a flaw.  The USB flash drive is on the wrist band.  This means you [most likely] need to remove the watch from your person to use the USB stick for any length of time.  What a waste.

usb drive watch

Couldn’t they put the USB flash drive on the other side of the of the wrist band? Continue Reading

Remove Read Only USB – Remove CDROM USB Partitions

Remove CDROM USB Partitions

Remove Read Only USB – Remove CD-ROM USB Partitions

If you are like me, you’ve done a great bit of searching on the internet to remove Read Only USB partition or to remove CDROM USB partition, and unfortunately the information is very scarce and the information which is out there, isn’t very clear and direct.  The only utility we’ve found, is the one used to remove the U3 platform off a retail USB stick made by SanDisk, but chances are you are dealing with a different vendor or stick. In addition, the U3 platform was killed a long time ago by SanDisk because hackers kept using the auto-run function associated with CD-ROM discs to auto-run USB malware.

remove CDROM USB partition

We found a company that can do this, and they do it in bulk, USBCopier.com is a USB duplication service company that specializes in fixing your problem, like removing a Read Only USB partition.  I’m not sure how they do it, but their services worked for us.

As you know, a simple format or delete attempt to the USB device simply doesn’t work…you get the “This disk is write protected” message. The flash drive is configured this way at the chip level, so it’s not a formatting problem. The chip inside the USB flash drive, called the controller, has a configuration setting so the device will appear as a CD-ROM device. Since the vendor commands are not available to access the USB controller chip, you cannot re-configure the device to work like a normal flash drive.

I spoke with USBCopier.com about the issue, and they can remove a USB partition off all types of drives, like USB sticks with Chipsbank controllers, Alcor, SMI, USBest, Innostor and many others.  They also said the partition type doesn’t matter, it can be either the Read Only or CDROM and they can remove it.  USBCopier also mentioned if they can remove the USB partition, then chances are, they can also recreate it.

The company was a life saver to us and I wanted to pass along the information.  It was much cheaper to pay the service fee to remove the USB partition than it was to re-buy all the USB sticks and start from scratch.

Here is the link to their USB duplication service page.  Here is the link to their contact page.

If you are in a bit of trouble – I wish you luck – these guys could possibly help.

Continue Reading

USB Hack in Palm Pre Confirms a Sync With iTunes

Palm Pre owners might find a small window of opportunity to sync their device with iTunes for easy music browsing, listening and downloading.  In short, someone figured out how to have the Palm Pre appear as an iPod to iTunes by chancing the VendorID of the Palm.  Meaning – iTunes thinks its an iPod, but it really isn’t.

Palm Pre USB hack

I seriously doubt this was something done by Palm, but rather a hacker out there doing what hackers do. First you have Palm claiming it’s a USB compliant device for a different vendor, I don’t think that will fly.  Second, you have Palm tricking iTunes thinking it’s an iPod – Apple wont be too happy about that. Third, it shows Continue Reading

GetUSB.info on Twitter

GetUSB on Twitter

Read an interesting article on social media and how it can impact your business, blog, or audience through social media websites like FaceBook and Twitter.  Granted, these terms are nothing new, and today we announce the addition of another network for GetUSB, Twitter. The article which inspired me to sign up was from Chris Brogan and if you are looking for 50 reasons, or just one, on why to get onto Twitter – give it a read. So now you can receive the GetUSB article title each day on Twitter, and if the topic tickles your fancy, click through and read the rest.  There is plenty of good content we churn out day after day, so please follow us. Thanks & Cheers, Gmo Editor in Chief GetUSB.info Continue Reading

Solid Gold USB Flash Drive

Brando sent out an email with their latest USB flash drive and the images immediately caught my eye.  I must also admit, the USB key isn’t solid gold either, Brando doesn’t sell expensive stuff.

gold USB flash drive

This day in age, even a USB stick that looks like a gold bar should make you feel better.  We all know how the stock market has been treating us.

solid gold USB stick

As with all USB keys, it’s plug-n-play, works on all OS’ and is made of a metal gold case.  Size is 55 x 22 x 11mm. Priced just right at Continue Reading

USB Hub Reaches 49 Ports But With One Big Flaw

A UK based company [Cambrionix Limited]  has mapped out a single PCB board to house 49 USB ports.  Using the typical cascading style of USB typology, the main 7 port hub is then wired to another set of 7 hubs with seven ports…giving you 49 total.

49 port usb hub

The device is originally designed for testing USB devices in bulk, which is fine, but I see a fundamental flaw in all this.  If one Hub chip goes south, the entire board [or portion of it] goes bad as well. Typically a cascade style is fine because if one hub goes bad you simply replace that one hub, but in this case it’s not so easy.  With an entire PCB board, you need solder rework – that takes time and expense.  It’s a great concept, but I don’t think it’s very practical.  Here at GetUSB Continue Reading

Cigarette Lighter As USB Spy Camera

So what are some basic elements you need to overcome to use the USB spy camera packed up as a cigarette lighter?  First, you need to be someone who smokes…or looks like someone who smokes.  It wouldn’t be easy to use this product on your friends, if they know you don’t smoke.  Second, you need to be willing to let the world know you’re a smoker.  This probably isn’t a big deal for most people in the world, but being from California, it’s something no one approves of.

usb cigarette lighter

So if you’ve gotten past the stigma, then the cigarette lighter spy camera is a viable option to bust your best friend, wife or boss with suspicious activity. With 2GB of built in memory, you’ll never have a shortage of memory for audio or video surveillance.  In addition, the video quality is fairly good at 640 x 480 pixels and a respectable 16 frames per second [respectable given the size of the device at just 5.3 x 3.7 x 1.2 cm].  Once your mission is complete, and you feel something good was caught on tape, simply download the content via USB and make your case. Continue Reading

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