Sometimes Windows cannot delete the system volume on the disk because the partition table is corrupt. The solution is very easy and all the tools required to solve this problem are pre-installed and ready to use on any Windows 10 (+) computer.

In short, the Disk Management utility cannot delete the volume because there is corrupt data in the partition table of the device. This issue we are talking about is most likely associated with a USB flash drive and sometimes USB hard drives.

One of the reasons a user will get a corrupt partition table is from formatting the USB device over and over again. Sometimes computers just don’t do what they are supposed to do! Surprise!

A common reason a user would like to delete the volume of a flash drive is to start “clean” with a fresh device. The reason to start “clean” is because some other function or task is not working as expected. For example, a user trying to create an digital image file (.img) from a physical USB flash drive continues to create corrupt image files. Well, when you start with a corrupt partition table, you’ll end up with a corrupt image file.

Another reason could be a user is trying to make a two partition flash drive using Disk Management. However, you cannot make a two partition flash drive if you cannot delete the volume in the first place!

We did a great write up about “How to partition a USB flash drive in Windows” a while back. A good read if you have the time.

The below steps will show you exactly how to fix this problem. There is a video at the bottom of this post showing the steps.

• Connect your flash drive
• In the search field in Windows (bottom left white box that says “Type here to search”) type “Disk Management” and click ENTER on the keyboard. Disk Management should pop up.
• In the search field in Windows type “diskpart” and click ENTER on the keyboard. DiskPart will either pop open, or a dialogue box will ask if you want to open it, click YES
• In DiskPart type “list disk“
• From the list provided determine which disk number represents your USB flash drive or hard drive
• In the screen shot below, our disk is #1
• Type “select disk x” *In this example we typed “select disk 1”
• Type “clean“
• When that is complete, toggle over to the Disk Management utility
• Right click the box which represents the USB flash drive and select “New Simple Volume“
• Follow the prompts in the wizard to complete the process

After completing the above steps the flash drive is now ready for use. In addition, if it is required to go back and delete the volume, say to make a two partition flash drive, you can now do this without the error message “This Request Is Not Supported”

Here is a video for the above process:

Beginning with macOS Ventura, a new layer of protection offers some reassurance to enterprise IT against USB device-borne attacks.

Mac computers using the new Apple silicon will require USB and Thunderbolt accessories to be approved by the user before the accessory can communicate with macOS.

When a new USB or Thunderbolt device is connected to a Mac, the user will be prompted to approve the connection. The end user must unlock a locked Mac before the computer will recognize the accessory. This makes use of the allowUSBRestrictedMode restriction, which is new to the Mac. When your Mac is locked for more than an hour, the protection kicks in.

It does not apply to power adapters, displays, or connections to an approved hub, according to Apple, and devices will continue to charge even if you select Do Not Allow Use of a Connected Accessory. Energy flows, but data does not, according to the theory.

Where does USB Restricted Mode operate?

• On Apple Silicon Macs, the protection is enabled by default.
• The enabled protection is to Request New Accessories; other options include:
• — Every time, inquire.
• — When unlocked, this happens automatically.
• — Always.
• Requesting new accessories is the bare minimum of security, though highly secure enterprises will want to request permission each time.
• You can disable / enable the setting by going to: System Settings>Security & Privacy>Security
• Setting up an accessibility Switch Control configures the policy to allow accessory use at all times.
• For up to three days, approved devices can connect to a locked Mac.

This is a new security setting and configuration Apple is planning to introduce from Ventura forward. More articles related to USB and Mac computers.

Doing some research for why some HP computers do not boot from a USB flash drive, I came across Ventoy.

Ventoy is a software tool to create a USB flash drive bootable in anything and supports the most common image files.

We tried Ventoy to make a USB flash drive bootable, and it works like a champ. In fact, the software is so easy to use, it is worth commenting about a previous post we did. A while back we talked about how to check if your USB flash drive is bootable, and to be honest, rather than putting in the time and work to read the article and do the steps, your time is better used flashing your drive with Ventoy. The result is a bootable USB flash drive for any device.

Ventoy is an open source tool for creating bootable flash drives when using image files like ISO, IMG, WIM, VHD and EFI files. The project team tested over 900 image files which tested successfully on over 90% of the distro packages.

What we like about this solution is no need to flash the drive with boot code using the source CD-ROM like so many tutorials out there (for Windows at least) because the Ventoy tool creates a second partition which all the boot code and the Ventoy utility flashes that partition with the boot code needed. You can see from the Disk Management screen shot below there are now two partitions on the tested flash drive.

You can tell there have been plenty of Ventoy updates and what is (also) very nice about their software tool is the display of Ventoy version on your device. Nice feature to cross reference if your device is current or needs an update. The update process is just as quick as the original creation of the bootable device.

Considering the above, it goes without saying it is easier than ever to make a USB flash drive bootable in anything without having to re-do the work. This software eliminates the need to re-create a bootable image to USB and flash it over and over. Simply update the image file content, not the boot strap code.

The only thing even slightly annoying, which is easy enough to correct is the Volume name for the primary partition defaults to “Ventoy” Would be nice if an edit feature was in the software to customize this without the additional step of renaming the volume after-the-fact.

Here are a list of feature copied from the website. The project is open source and we suggest making a donation if you do in-fact use the code. It’s only fair, right!

There are two methods to hide a file on a flash drive. Both methods are free and one is better than the other.

The first method is very straight forward and easy for anyone to use and probably common to most computer users. That said, this first method is also easy to detect the file on the USB.

The second method is more obfuscated and harder to detect. Using the second method it is harder to find the hidden file unless you are specifically looking for it.

Both methods work well for hiding a file on a flash drive and free to use with a Windows computer; however, anyone with a bit of IT knowledge and experience can find the files – so this isn’t a bullet proof method for hiding a file from absolutely everyone.

If you are looking for a truly secure method to hid a file on a USB flash drive then a paid-for-product will be your better solution, you might want to check out some Secure Flash Drives by this company.

But in the meantime, if you need a quick solution, or you don’t want to spend money on a product, today’s article will work fine.

This article will show you how to create a website shortcut that works from a flash drive. The article includes the instructions, a video on the instructions and a template file one can download and tweak for their own use.

The reason for this topic of creating a website shortcut on a flash drive is because dragging and dropping your desktop shortcut to a flash drive doesn’t work.

The shortcut on a desktop is a relative path of the computer to the website. Which means the shortcut doesn’t transfer well to a flash drive for others to use. Rather than a working shortcut, the shortcut either errors off or takes you to a generic page within the browser.

Creating a shortcut that works on a USB flash drive is very easy. Like, crazy easy.

• Open Notepad (type notepad in search and click Enter)
• Type: [InternetShortcut]
• Type website landing page: URL=https://www.getusb.info
• Now Save As the file to your USB flash drive with .URL extension.

You have now successfully made a website shortcut on your USB flash drive.

This link can be used on any flash drive or hard drive or desktop location. The shortcut is truly a universal file that will work from any location.

Here is the text file which you can use as a template if the above instructions are too complicated or you simply don’t want to perform the steps.

Here is the video: How To: Create a Website Shortcut on a USB Drive

Do I have to eject my USB flash drive?

The short answer: No.

The technical answer: Yes.

If the technical answer is yes, the why do I have to Eject my USB Flash Drive?

The difference boils down to the type of file system being used. If the USB is FAT, FAT32 or exFAT you do NOT need to eject the USB flash drive before pulling it out of a computer.

If the USB drive is NTFS, then yes, eject the flash drive before pulling it out of the computer.

So why eject when the USB flash drive is formatted as NTFS?

The NTFS (New Technology File System) is a journaling file system system.

A journaling file system is one that keeps track of changes which have not yet been committed to the main part of the file system by recording the goal of such changes in a data structure known as a “journal,” which is typically a circular log. In the event of a system crash or power outage, such file systems can be restored more quickly and with a lower risk of corruption.

Depending on how it is implemented, a journaling file system may only keep track of stored metadata, resulting in improved performance at the expense of increased data corruption risk. A journaling file system, on the other hand, may track both stored data and related metadata, with some implementations allowing for user-selectable behavior in this regard.

With an NTFS formatted flash drive it is very possible there are journal entries going on in the background which the user is not away of, so if the drive is unexpectedly pulled out of the computer that physical action could corrupt the data on the drive.

Why do people format flash drives as NTFS?

Two common reasons people (wrongfully) format a flash drive as NTFS include:

1. The user would like to take advantage of security settings which NTFS does offer
2. The user has large single files and isn’t aware exFAT solves the same problem

NTFS allows an Administrator to assign privileges’ to files and folders and those security settings will remain for said files on the NTFS formatted flash drive. This is probably the ONLY legitimate reason a flash drive should be formatted as NTFS.

FAT and FAT32 have a single file limit of 4GBs so any single file larger than 4GBs will not be copied to a FAT or FAT32 flash drive. To get around this problem, Users will format the drive as NTFS. They select NTFS because it’s the same file system as their host computer… and since it works there… might as well format the flash drive the same way. However, what the users don’t understand is exFAT solves the same problem while at the same time providing a more stable file system – one that isn’t a journaling file system – so a flash drive can be pulled out without ejecting.

Good News – Free USB Eject Software Tool

GetUSB.info reported on this earlier; Eject USB Flash Drive safely, Free Download. The software is free to download, free to distribute and free to embed into other programs.

The concept of a write protect switch on a USB flash drive is to make it read only (locked). When the device is locked content on the drive cannot be changed, altered, manipulated, formatted or deleted off the drive. What GetUSB.info never understood is the value of a physical write protect switch.

Sure a USB write protect switch helps the honest people stay honest, but that approach isn’t very secure and certainly doesn’t apply for all situations.

So what replaces a write protect switch for a USB flash drive?

How about a programmatic way to add or remove the write protection to a flash drive?

Better yet, how about assigning a password to the programmatic way of adding or removing the write protection?

We can relax because the Lock License drives address both of these issues.

The Lock License drive is a hardware based ( at the chip level ) write protection solution and through a specific vendor software command the write protection can be removed to make the USB stick writable.

The write protection is configured on the USB controller of the flash drive. This means the write protection is done at the device level and will follow the USB stick. The result is a Lock License drive which is truly read-only when connected to anything… such as a Windows computer, Mac computer, Linux box, Smart TV, car stereo, anything!

The Lock License drive comes with a software method to unlock the drive and make it writable. This special software requires a password to be assigned to the unlocking. The password is required because the manufacturer, Nexcopy, didn’t want a universal way to unlock the drive.

Kanguru manufactures a USB flash drive with a physical write protect switch. The write protection itself is as secure as the Lock License solution, the difference is a Lock License drive adds one additional layer of security. The additional layer of security, the password requirement, is an important step for ensuring the device is as secure as possible.

Another interesting fact about the Lock License drive is the default state of the USB stick being read-only, or write protected. This means it is impossible for a user to accidently leave the Lock License drive unlocked.

The “locking” or write protection is done when power is cut from the device. Even if a user forgets to lock the drive, the locking happens automatically when the USB is disconnected from the computer.

It is worth noting there is no universal way to write protect any flash drive, this is why you cannot buy some software solution to do the feature. Write protection is a hardware based solution, not software.

The Lock License drive is manufactured by Nexcopy Inc who is based out of Southern California. The product is available in both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 technology and ranging in GB capacities from 2GB through 128GB.

USB Flash Drives are indispensable for the students.

They are a fantastic tool to store and use documents and other important data. Moreover, talk to any student and they will let you know how they carry a USB flash drive—attached to key rings, customized with colors, shapes, objects, and much more!

With a USB flash drive, you can use your computers or laptops efficiently whether you’re at home or university, or school. There may be times when you want to continue work even after school hours; therefore, carrying a USB flash drive is very handy.

With all that being said, USB flash drives can cost students a lot; especially if you’ve lost one and have to buy another. Therefore, here are a few ways you can get USB flash drives for free.

Free USBs With A Purchase

There are many computer stores, and stores for cameras, cell phones, and other tech-related things that give flash drives for free with purchases.

Itpstyli

Itpstyli is a company that makes over 1000 styli for CMM, gear measurement equipment, and machine centers. To get a flash drive for free, you have to add it to the cart and save the cart as a shopping list.

If you require help with homework or need assistance in technical disciplines, feel free to get in touch with cwassignments.com to get assignment help online from experts.

MyBioSource.com

The company sells biological reagents. If you’re in the field of biology, and need products in bulk, you can get a free USB flash drive, or even more, based on the items of your purchase. Your free flash drive will get you 8GB of storage.

You must also keep an eye on Best Buy, Tiger Direct, and NewEgg, as these tech retailers often give away tech items, including USB flash drives. They may also give away products when you refer people, share their promotional posts, subscribe to their newsletters, be a loyal online presence, or buy products from them.

Flash Drive Retailers

As you must have realized by now, there are very few stores that sell just USB flash drives. However, they do exist; and the chances of you getting a free USB flash drive from them becomes quite high. You can accomplish this through online contests, giveaways, store promos, affiliate programs, and more.

USBholic

USBholic is a Texas-based retailer that sells flash drives. You can pick a cute design from their store and choose the 4GB one. When you do so, you’ll see the price to be $0.01 per flash drive. Even though it’s not completely free, it’s close. USBholic ships flash drives to Europe, the US, Asia, and Oceania. However, please check the shipping costs to your place to see if it’s worth getting it shipped.

A USB flash drive with activity light gives the user visual feedback the device is working.

Click here to buy a USB flash drive with activity light. While on this site, consider some other advanced functions you might need, but didn’t think of. Advanced functions such as:

• Maybe you want the USB flash drive to be read-only (write protected)
• Maybe you want the USB to act like a CD-ROM drive
• Maybe you need to copy protect files on the drive – meaning people can view the files but they cannot print them, save them, screen capture, share, etc. The files can only be viewed.

These USB flash drives use an activity light and also provide the other cool functions mentioned above. The landing website offers six different body styles and an unlimited number of body colors along with free printing / branding if required.

Many small and portable flash drives do not have an activity light and we don’t like those types of drives. They don’t give the visual feedback we want to see.

The people who write for this blog prefer a USB flash drive with an activity light. The USB manufacturers have different settings for the LED activity light. Here is a screen shot of the mass production software tool used when making a flash drive.

There are two main settings for a USB activity light:

• On or Off setting for the LED on when device is ready
• Blink or not when flash memory is being accessed (this is for either read or write)

In our experience any USB flash drive with an activity light will have both of the above settings to On. Meaning the LED will be a solid color when connected and ready, and will blink as the device is being accessed for either a read or write request.

The most common LED color of a flash drive is red. However, we have seen green and blue LED lights on occasion. Most flash drives can be customized with specific LED colors if required. Lead times and pricing might fluctuate depending on what is required.

If you have a greyed out USB flash drive this article should be able to help you resolve the issue.

The most common reason is the USB flash drive has a different file system and you simply need to format the drive. For example, Ext3, Ext4 or HFS are file systems for Linux and Mac. By formatting the USB drive it could restore the drive and it’s no longer greyed out.

If this didn’t do the trick, then try the next suggestion ↓

It is possible the greyed out USB flash drive has a bad device driver. We can uninstall the drive and try re-installing the USB stick (reconnecting).

Do the following:

In the Search area type “Device Manager” and good chance Windows will auto-suggest before you are even done typing. Select Device Manager.

Alternatively you can click the Windows key along with “X” and from the list select Device Manager

Device Manager lists things alphabetically so scroll towards the button and expand the carrot > for Universal Serial Bus controllers.

In the sub-listing you will see the Mass Storage Device and then right click that device and select Uninstall device

Now the device drive has been removed, please reconnect the device and see if the greyed out USB flash drive is still greyed out.

If this didn’t do the trick we have one last suggestion for you before declaring the USB stick most likely dead ↓

How to check a USB flash drive power output is fairly simple: the drive doesn’t output any power. That is the short answer.

What is really happening is the flash drive gives the host (the computer) instructions on the maximum power which should be sent to the flash drive.

So now that we understand a USB flash drive doesn’t put out power, but rather receives it, the next question becomes… how much power does the flash drive instruct it can receive?

When a USB flash drive is connected to a host computer there is something call a “device descriptor” which gives the host a long list of configuration settings. One of those device descriptors is the maximum power setting the device should receive. Now… it is 100% up to the host computer to respect that request, or not.

If you are having USB power disconnection issues it can be one of two things:

1. The USB flash drive has too low of a power configuration setting
2. The host is not respecting the device descriptor of the flash drive setting

99.9% of the time the host is respecting the device descriptor because the USB stock (code) to run the USB flash drives is typically well developed i.e. the USB driver is from Microsoft.

The more likely problem is the power setting of the device is set to low. If the power setting is set to low this means the host computer will monitor the power and since the USB is asking for more power than what is set in the descriptor the host computer disconnects the drive.

Below is a screen shot for the mass production tool used to make USB flash drives. As you can see the power settings available to configure the drive range from 100mA (milliaps) to 500mA. The maximum power limit for USB 2.0 is 500mA and thus should be the setting to make a USB flash drive. However, if the USB manufacturer messed up with an incorrect selection then a very good chance a 200mA flash drive is being disconnected all the time… and by no fault of the host computer!

So how do you find the power output of a flash drive? Or more accurately, what is the power consumption definition of the flash drive?

In short, there is no easy way to find this information in Windows. The easiest solution is download a 3rd party application and run the tool to see. The tool (USBDeview) is very small and runs directly as an exe file, no installation required.

Below are two screen shots.

The first screen shot is a USB flash drive set at 200mA. Clearly this device will run into disconnection issues

The second screen shot is a USB flash drive set at 500mA. This is the correct configuration of a USB flash drive for power output.

The above information is the easiest way to for USB flash drive power output for a thumb drive.

Using very simple and inexpensive items, create a USB power hub station for all gadgets like headphones, chargers, GPS units, GoPro camera’s and more.

In addition to a very organized solution, the DIY USB power hub station is out of the way, yet easily accessible. No more taking up valuable kitchen counter space with cluttered gadgets and a birds nest of cables.

The solution is ultra-easy. For the DIY USB power hub station all you need is a shoe rack for the closet, a USB hub and your cables.

In less than 10 minutes you can be organized, powered and out of sight. This DIY project was less than $35 dollars.

First, grab a hanging shoe rack from Amazon. I found this 10 slot shoe rack for $13.

Next, grab a USB hub that only runs power (less expensive) and I found a matching 10 socket version for my 10 slot shoe rack for $20.

The only thing left to possibly buy are cables. However, you probably already have the powering USB cables required for your devices. I do think getting cables that have a combo Apple Lightening cable and microUSB cable allow things to be a bit more flexible when connecting various devices.

Here is a set of two cables with three different connectors (Lightening, USB-C and microUSB) for $6.00 (each) $13 total.

Once your items arrive the assembly is literally two minutes. There is a good chance it will take longer to clean out your closet than assemble the DIY USB power hub station.

The best location would be in the closet under your stairs. This is true because the space most likely has a power outlet.

• Step 1 – Cut a small piece of fabric in the back of each shoe rack slot
• Step 2 – Place USB powered hub in the bottom shoe rack slot
• Step 3 – Lay out the shoe rack and thread each power cable from the USB hub to each shoe rack slot
• Step 4 – Place devices in shoe rack slots and connect
• Step 5 – Hang USB power hub charging station in your closet