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Posts Tagged ‘USB Tutorials’

How To: Make USB Volume Name Longer Than 11 Characters

By default the Windows operating system assigns the Volume name of a USB stick as “Removable Disk.”  However, there are times when you need a different Volume name…and many times the USB Volume name needs to be longer than 11 characters. Using the standard Windows “Rename” function, limits you to only 11 characters.  You can’t always get what you want with just 11 characters…so how do you make the Volume name of USB stick longer than 11 characters? It’s easy, with the help of an inf file.  An INF file (or Setup Information file) is a plain text file used by Microsoft Windows for installation of software and/or drivers. Today we are going to use the .INF file to increase the length of our USB Volume name past 11 characters. For those of you who are familiar with .INF files here is the meat of the answer:
[autorun] Label=type whatever you want here
For those of you less familiar with .INF files they are extremely easy to make and use.  For the USB Volume name this is what you do: Continue Reading

USB Hack: Turn a USB Stick Into a Hard Drive or Local Disk

USB Hack:  Turn a USB Stick Into a Hard Drive or Local Disk

USB Tutorial: Turn a USB stick into a Hard Drive or Local Disk

This is a very valuable tutorial, especially if you are looking to partition a USB stick.  Another application for turning a removable drive into a local disk, is that now many software programs can be loaded directly to a USB drive.  The first program which comes to mind is iTunes.  I know you need My Documents and a Local Disk to install it, so after this tutorial, I’ll try installing iTunes and share the results.

The process of turning a USB stick into a hard drive is fairly easy.  However, there are limitations.  For example, this works best with Windows XP operating systems.  You also need to update the drivers for the device for any computer you are going to use.  Typically, this isn’t a big deal as you can easily do this for your work and home computers.  However, this isn’t a great solution if you are trying to create a partitions USB stick for distribution to many possible users [say trade show give-away].

Couple of items you’ll need:

  • USB_LocalDisk.zip files [download here]
  • Windows XP
  • USB stick

What we will do, is connected the USB stick, find the driver code, update the driver code and re-connect the device.  Simple.

Here are the details:

Continue Reading

Never Leave Your UFD Behind With Flash Drive Reminder Utility

It’ is very possible many of you have left a USB stick in a work computer or friends computer simply because you forgot to pull it out upon leaving.  To help in those moments of lapsed memory, there is a utility that take care of your temporary Alzheimers.  The Flash Drive Reminder utility is a Windows based application and simply reminds you the USB stick is still plugged in when you log off or shut down.

flash drive reminder

The tiny app takes up very little space, autoruns from your USB stick and displays a pop up window upon connection.  This is where the application confirms the device is connected and you have the option to turn off the reminder or hide it until logging off or shutting down.  At which time, the software will throw up another pop-up windows telling you to grab your USB stick. There is a “quiet” version which eliminates the original pop-up window [nice] but will definitely display when you go to power down. The Flash Drive Reminder utility is free for the taking.  Continue Reading

USB Tutorial: Make a Wood USB Drive

One of the most common problems with USB drives is the plastic casing getting cracked and breaking apart.  It’s a shame that such a cheap piece of plastic might encourage some to drop another $20 or $30 on a new device.  Of course fixing the plastic is never going to work as a long term solution – just a stop-gap. Instructables has a nice USB tutorial on taking a UFD and turning it’s case into a nice, customized wood piece.  Sure you could buy a fancy wood drive made from material carbon dated back 600 years or more, but sometimes making your own stuff is much more satisfying.

make wood drive, usb tutorial

The USB tutorial displays 12 steps from start to finish with a list of equipment you’ll need, but after reading through the tutorial, I think a dremel would replace most of the tools required.  And we all have one of those. So get going and as Eric would say “go build something…” Link to USB tutorial lesson. Continue Reading

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