Anyone know how to use a USB flash drive?

[American Woman]

I'm sending my lap top off to be repaired and I wanted to save all my computer files just in case they get erased. Somebody told me about this USB flash drive.... I found the hole it goes in and that's as far as I got. How do I down load stuff on it?

 

[jpr62902]

Just plug it in and copy then paste your files to the usb drive (it should show up under "my computer").

 

[Gatorboy]

Doubtful the flash drive will hold your entire hard drives worth of data.

 

[jwstewar]

lol at Gator, he is right but only because he took you litterally.

I'm sure you are just wanting to back up your documents and music and such. If you are running XP or Vista, just plug it in. It will/should (depending upon why you are taking it in for repair) display in my computer. You can then just drag and drop your files from you My Documents (assuming you put all your files in there) to the USB drive. If you have multiple profiles (meaning more than one person signs into the computer with their unique ID) you will have to grab the files from each of their My Documents folders.

Do you need to back up your e-mails as well? What do you use as an e-mail client? Outlook? Outlook Express? Something else? If it is web-based Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, you don't need to worry about it, it is stored by Google, etc.

 

[RNE228]

Doubtful the flash drive will hold your entire hard drives worth of data.

32 and 64 Gig thumb drives would likely hold a typical persons data; not for someone like you who in photography with lots of high resolution images stored though.

 

[RNE228]

I'm sending my lap top off to be repaired and I wanted to save all my computer files just in case they get erased. Somebody told me about this USB flash drive.... I found the hole it goes in and that's as far as I got. How do I down load stuff on it?

How much data do you have, and how big is the flash drive you got? That will be a consideration.

Otherwise, as others have mentioned, once you plug the USB flash drive in to the USB slot on your computer, it should just show up when you select "My Computer" from the start menu.

Then it is a simple drag and drop of your documents directory on to the USB flash drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=414&name=External-Hard-Drives

We use them all the time at work; I work on a lot of prototype systems that I can not put on our internal network. So, I have to use the USB flash drive and sneaker-net.

You may want to consider an USB external hard drive. They allow you to back up your whole hard drive. They also come with software to do daily, weekly type of backups. There are 500GB backup drives for $75 or so. They plug in to the USB port, just like the USB flash drive.

 

[Gatorboy]

You may want to consider an USB external hard drive. They allow you to back up your whole hard drive. They also come with software to do daily, weekly type of backups. There are 500GB backup drives for $75 or so. They plug in to the USB port, just like the USB flash drive.

+1

 

[johnday]

OK, how do you erase everything on a thumbnail?

 

[rlk]

OK, how do you erase everything on a thumbnail?

Let the thumbnail grow out, then use a pair of fingernail clippers.

Bob

 

[johnday]

Let the thumbnail grow out, then use a pair of fingernail clippers.

Bob

 

[Doc]

Same way you do files anywhere else on your purter. Bring up expore and highlight the files you want to delete or move etc...
..or were you joshing us with that question?

 

[ddrane2115]

You may want to consider an USB external hard drive. They allow you to back up your whole hard drive. They also come with software to do daily, weekly type of backups. There are 500GB backup drives for $75 or so. They plug in to the USB port, just like the USB flash drive.

This would be the best, but if the computer is trashed probably wont load the program. Most will be recognized even without the software, then it is drop and drag again. Also note that if something in the software has cause the problem, doing a sys restore once it is fixed would again cause the problem. Just save the data files, load them back one by one.......corruption again.........and if all goes back and working, great.

 

[johnday]

Same way you do files anywhere else on your purter. Bring up expore and highlight the files you want to delete or move etc...
..or were you joshing us with that question?

I wish I was putting everyone on. Really, after close to two years of not using a computer for other than finding my way around, I really did forget how to do things.