3.5" FDD (Floppy Disk Drive) is Dead! Long live the Zipmem USB Drive!

Currently this magnetic medium is fast getting replaced by the â flash Româ drives that they also know by Pen Drive or USB Drive. This new medium is killing the elderly magnetic medium for its reliability, speed and ever growing capacity.



Do you keep in mind the last time you used the FDD drive of your computer, and for what? Chance is in case you have used it then it would be for some emergency booting of the computer, or for recovery of your broken OS. Meaning you would have not used it for knowledge transfer using this medium.

Historicallyin the past the secondary storage is always in the realm of change. Know-how and needs are always pushing the medium smaller, faster, more reliable, secure and of expanding capacity. like some ten years back the five.25â dives were replaced by this three.5â drives for smaller size and bigger capacity.

History

Paper Punch Card

History of secondary storage is calm fascinating, as it's seen the use of papers to silicon to optical medium. With each generation it gets better, faster and smaller is size and always increasing the storage capacity.

Floppy Drive (8â)

Paper Punch cards used initially as the first outside storage tool. It used paper card/roll with holes as knowledge. Meaning a hole was zero, and no hole was. Programmers used to punch the card for providing input. Card printers were there to punch the output for storage.

One time the magnetic media began to be used for storage, paper media was quickly made obsolete. Magnetic disks of round shape emerged as the standard for secondary storage tool. It became popular as it was more robust and handy than the paper roll, and could store more knowledge.

Further advancement in the material & magnetic expertise provided better density & provided much higher storage capacity in smaller area. Now the disks also began to become double sided providing even more knowledge storage area in the same size disks.

Floppy Drive (five.25â)

This media peaked with the three.5â FDD that was tiny & sturdy to be carred in the denims pocket. Its case also provided cover even for the area that is used for reading, leading to more protection from dust & humidity even when the floppy was not in any cover.

Floppy Drive (three.5â)

This drive released in 1994 by a company called Iomega could holding 100MB of knowledge. This also makes use of the magnetic coating like the regular floppy disks, usb hard drivebut of higher quality & of superior expertise. Due to this it needs specialized drives for reading & writing on this media. This made it a lovely backup drive (like tape drives), but not lovely for using it on any machine. Currently generation of Zip Disks can hold upto 250MB of knowledge.

Zip Drive

Flash Drive (USB Drive)

Also often called Pen Drive is the next revolution in secondary transportable storage tool. Initially emerged with couple of MB storage capacity, it quickly gained attraction due to its solid state rugged construction & its capability of being used on any computer equipped with USB port. Initially it needed a specific driver to be installed on the earlier OS in order to be used, but later, due to its universally open standard & rise in use of the USB port, its support was provided natively in the OS. (Windows/Macintosh/Linux supports it natively out of the box).

This standardization of protocol has lead to not only popularity of the USB flash drives, but has also provided a common way for other media to act as drive by this protocol. So now there's storage products making use of this standard to become USB drives (also called USB Mass Storage). Example includes:
- USB Hard Disk Drives
- Zip Drive with USB interface
- digital camera acting as an USB drives for accessing the photographs directly on any computer
- PDAs like Palm that already connect to the computer using USB acts as a USB drive for accessing the knowledge stored in its memory & SD/MMC Card
- Mp3 players that doubles as USB drive!!

So now virtually nothing more is necessary for this drive to work in the event you have a computer with a standard USB port. Though the manufacturers are also providing additional features to the hardware like encryption, but these features usually requires additional software/driver to be installed in order to be used. & since there is not much standard for these features yet it is mostly tool specific & is largely ignored for its lack of compatibility.

Currently one GB USB flash drives are available, & bigger drives are on the horizon.

The list of applications are getting bigger & bigger, ultimately making this drive a very popular & successful.
As mentioned above this medium is also getting popular & is popular chiefly for higher speed & capacity than what is currently provided by the USB flash drive. On the flip side it is still fragile (as having moving element) & bulkier than the flash drive.


Portable USB HDD


Last but not the least is this future product. This is the media of the future that makes use of expertise that is still in its infancy - holography. Though holography & holograms are not new & was discovered in the late 1940s, but its application for knowledge storage is something new. A company called InPhase Technologies is of the forerunners in this field that has prototyped disks that can hold 200GB to one.6TB of knowledge. This external usb driveexpertise makes use of lasers for reading & writing the knowledge.

Why FDD is dying

Using this one.44MB floppy disk drive was always bit unreliable. They can all recall the "Sector 0 Bad" error, & myriad number of utilities supporting various recovery & advanced modifications like:

- marking sectors bad (NDD - Norton Disk Doctor & its surface scan (ultimately acquired by Symantec & is part of its Norton Utilities Toolset right now). - Another popular utility was to generate another zero sector if the actual was gone bad. So what is remaining in the way of death of this magnetic medium? Only time! As of now few features still needs the magnetic floppy disk drive, like for booting for the first time, or for upgrading BIOS of the motherboard etc. This is due to itâs (FDDs) simple of programming at the lower level & more importantly for its inbuilt support in the BIOS program. So as soon as the modern BIOS start supporting the USB drives (motherboards have now began to come with this support) the floppy days are numbered.

Current Support of USB Devices by the Motherboard/BIOS

The current motherboards & BIOS have started the support of usb thumb drive as boot tool. Meaning you can have your whole operating method on this tool, or basically use it as the bootable floppy (imaging carrying your whole work including the programs & applications on a small keychain). Depending on the mode of usage resources are obtainable on the Web for configuring your USB drive. checkout the links provided below where it provides tips & tricks of doing so.

Speaking of simple of use of using this feature, the issue lies with the (Windows) OS right now that does not support making the USB drive bootable. It does let you format the USB drive & choose the file method format, but Make Booteble option is not present at all. Seldom mind as there's lot of tools & utilities obtainable (for all popular OS) that supports making it bootable, though you will must struggle a bit.

Future


As you see there is no need of Floppy Disks for any use/operation & is getting replaced speedy by the USB drives. Already major computer vendors have made FDD as optional feature. Now the time has come of the USB flash drive over the demise of the FDD.

Visit author's site for more information about the author as well as get access to more articles on various topics -

Pen drive two GB capacity obtainable with Om Nanotech Pvt. Ltd. located in different parts of the world including India, Singapore and the United States. The product list comprises of products like Ram,Micron Memory part, DRAM, storage memory cards, usb disk drive and far more.
Posted by zipmem at 0

kolaveri Got 1 Corers Hit One week

USB Flash Drive Price Trends

What a difference a few years can make! The USB flash drive prices of today are not very recognizable compared to those of yesterday�and that�s a nice thing. Premium USB is prepared to take you on a trip down memory lane (bad pun intended) to see how far we�ve come & where we�re headed.
First however, they must give you a small point of view on storage capacity. A number of the first commercial flash drives were 128MB & 256MB. Less than 100 images can be stored on 128MB while 256MB gives you a small over 150 images or 50 songs. Today�s average 4GB flash drive on the other hand can hold two full length movies or over two thousand images. A 16GB USB drive holds five times the flicks of its four gig counterpart. Alternately, it's the capability to store over 300,000 documents.
Now we�ve come to prices. In 2003, a standard 128MB flash drive cost $60 & a 256MB flash drive cost $100. Skip ahead years to late 2006 when a 4GB USB was priced at about $60. In early 2007, the cost of these drives dropped about $10.
Over a year later in late 2008, $60 could buy you a 16GB flash drive while $70 could even buy you 32GB. At the beginning of 2009, a 16GB drive was priced around $25. This past December, a 32GB USB flash drive was less than $40. Today, a 16GB USB drive is about $20. At Premium USB, a 4GB flash drive will cost only about $10. Additionally, today�s flash drives are not only more affordable, but they also boast more custom designs & more features like encryption or virus protection.
Flash drive prices are not immune to fluctuations, however. There's annual events that occur affecting how much you pay for these storage devices. Chinese companies supply plenty of of the parts for promotional USB drives. As a result, when Chinese New Year comes along in February, production shuts down for two to three weeks, driving up demand & therefore prices.
These USB prices usually settle down between March & April & are at a low around June before holiday production ramps up at the tail finish of the summer. The beginning of the 4th quarter often reflects a number of the lowest prices of the year. Production obstacles including facility power outages or natural disasters can also generate volatile spikes in prices.
However, as NAND flash expertise continues to evolve & improve, the long term outlook is that USB drives will only continue to boast greater capacities & capabilities at more wallet-friendly prices. Your four gig or 16 gig flash drive of tomorrow will continue to be less expensive than your 128MB drive from 8 years ago.
Do you keep in mind how much you paid for your first USB flash drive?

10 cool things you can do with a USB flash drive

1: Run portable applications

In addition to storing your data, you can run portable applications from a USB flash drive. For example, OpenOffice, which is a complete office suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, drawing package, and database, is available as a portable application. Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are also available as portable applications. When you combine the office suite with the ability to surf the Web and check email, you’ll be able to take your most vital computing applications with you wherever you go — right in your pocket.

If that’s not enough, you can choose other applications to install on your USB flash drive fromPortableApps.com (Figure A). You can even install an entire prepackaged suite of applications that includes such things as an audio player, games, an antivirus utility, and a handy menu system.

Figure A

The PortableApps.com suite comes with a menu system to allow you to easily access your portable applications.

2: Boot an operating system

If you want to do more than just run your own applications, you might want to consider booting an entire operating system from your USB flash drive. You can boot either Windows or Linux from a USB flash drive; however, the process is not an exact science and you may be in for a technical adventure.

Fortunately, there are some guides you can follow. To learn how to boot Windows XP from a USB flash drive, see the article Creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows XP. To learn how to boot a version of Linux from a USB flash drive, see the article Puppy Linux teaches an old dog new tricks.

3: Connect to a wireless network

If you have a wireless network, you can use the Wireless Network Setup Wizard in Windows XP or the Windows Connect Now (WCN) feature built into Vista to save wireless network configuration information to a USB flash drive. You can then use your drive to quickly and easily connect another computer or a WCN-compatible device, such as a router or printer, to your wireless network. To learn more about using the Wireless Network Setup Wizard, see the Help And Support Center, which is accessible from Windows XP’s Start menu. To learn more about using the Windows Connect Now feature, see Windows Help And Support, which is accessible from Windows Vista’s Start menu.

4: Create a password reset disk

A password reset disk can really come in handy if you forget the password to your user account on a Windows system that is not a part of a domain. If you find yourself in that situation, you can use the password reset disk to reset your password and quickly get back into your user account. In Windows Vista, you can use USB flash drive rather than a floppy disk as a password reset disk (Figure B). For details on how to do so, see the article Create a Vista password reset disk using a USB flash drive.

Figure B

You can use your USB flash drive as a password reset disk.

5: Boost performance

If you’re running Windows Vista, you can use a USB flash drive to speed up your system with the ReadyBoost technology. ReadyBoost can use the storage space on a USB Flash drive as an additional memory cache to aid the memory cache on your hard disk. And because flash memory is more responsive than a hard disk, with its physical moving parts, the memory cache provided by ReadyBoost can significantly improve system responsiveness.

Using ReadyBoost is easy. You just insert your USB flash drive into your Vista system and follow the onscreen prompts to configure and use ReadyBoost. If you want more details, check out the article How SuperFetch and ReadyBoost work together.

6: Manage it

If all you really want to do with your USB flash drive is transport data, and you’re running Windows XP, you can do so more efficiently with the Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (Figure C). Once you have installed this manager, you can easily copy files to and from your drive, back up and restore the entire flash drive to and from your hard disk, change the drive label, and even create an autorun.inf file to launch Drive Manager automatically when you plug in the drive. To learn more about and download the USB Flash Drive Manager visit the Microsoft TechNet Magazine site.

Figure C

The Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager provides you with a host of features, such as drive backup.

7: Use it as an MP3 player

Would you like to be listening to music when you’re using a computer at the office, but you don’t have an MP3 player? If so, you can use a USB flash drive as an MP3 player along with Windows Media Player and a set of headphones. Just copy your MP3 files to your USB flash drive, plug it into your computer, and direct Windows Media Player to build a library of the songs on your drive. You can use all of Windows Media Player’s playback features, such as playlists and favorites, to easily customize your music listening experience. And best of all, you won’t have to worry about running low on battery power.

8: Password-protect it

If you use a USB flash drive to transport sensitive data that you would prefer to protect from prying eyes, should you lose the drive, Rohos Mini Drive (Figure D) can safeguard that data. This security tool allows you to create a secret partition on the drive and then password-protect/encrypt that partition, thus protecting any documents you copy to that partition via the utility’s file manager. You can download (and read a review of) Rohos Mini Drive at Download.com.

Figure D

Using Rohos Mini Drive, you can secure sensitive files on your USB flash drive.

9: Run a Web site from it

If you are a Web developer, you may be interested to know that with Server2Go, you can easily run a Web server that supports Apache, PHP, MySQL, and Perl right from a USB flash drive. You can use Server2Go right out of the box without any installation. It runs on all versions of Windows, supports most common browsers, and is completely free. To a developer, the benefits of having a portable Web server on a USB drive are numerous. For example, imagine being able to carry a live Web site demo into a sales pitch meeting. For more information about this package, visit theServer2Go site.

10: Lock your PC

Have you ever seen a movie in which a person in some secret government installation simply inserts and removes a card to log in and log out of a PC? If you thought that idea was cool, you’ll definitely want to investigate Predator (Figure E). Once installed and configured, this little freeware utility will allow you to turn a USB flash drive into a key you can use to lock and unlock your computer.

Figure E

With Predator, you can use a USB flash drive as a key to lock and unlock your computer.

While the USB flash drive is connected to your computer, everything works as it normally would. Once you remove the USB flash drive, your computer is locked down — the keyboard and mouse are disabled and the screen darkens. To unlock your computer, you just plug in the USB flash drive and the computer will be unlocked and you can begin using it. To learn more about Predator, and/or to download it, visit the developer’s Web site.

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Flash Drive (USB Drive)

Also known as Pen Drive is the next revolution in secondary portable storage device. Initially emerged with couple of MB storage capacity, it quickly gained attraction due to its solid state rugged construction and its capability of being used on any computer equipped with USB port. Initially it needed a specific driver to be installed on the earlier OS in order to be used, but later, due to its universally open standard and rise in use of the USB port, its support was provided natively in the OS. (Windows/Macintosh/Linux supports it natively out of the box).

So now virtually nothing more is needed for this drive to work if you have a computer with a standard USB port. Though the manufacturers are also providing additional features to the hardware like encryption, but these features generally requires additional software/driver to be installed in order to be used. And since there is not much standard for these features yet it is mostly device specific and is largely ignored for its lack of compatibility.
 

This standardization of protocol has lead to not only popularity of the USB flash drives, but has also provided a common way for other media to act as drive via this protocol. So now there are storage products making use of this standard to become USB drives (also called USB Mass Storage). Example includes:
- USB Hard Disk Drives
- Zip Drive with USB interface
- digital camera acting as an USB drive for accessing the photographs directly on any computer
- PDAs like Palm that already connect to the computer using USB acts as a USB drive for accessing the data stored in its memory and SD/MMC Card
- Mp3 players that doubles as USB drive!!
 

The list of applications are getting bigger and bigger, ultimately making this drive a very popular and successful.

Currently 1 GB USB flash drives are available, and bigger drives are on the horizon.

Antivirus USB Flash Drives: ClamWin

You're on the road a lot and like to use your USB flash drives on different computers? You take computer security seriously and you have the habit of scanning both your USB flash drives and your host computer for viruses on a regular basis? Let's hope so, or else you'd better start to protect yourself and your USB flash drives against malicious software and computer viruses asap!

We're glad to introduce to you a solid and powerful open source solution that enables you to scan your PC and/or your USB flash drive by running a portable application straight and conveniently from your USB thumbdrive.

Learn more about the benefits of using this powerful antivirus solution for USB flash drives, iPhones and other portable media devices which is also completely open source and purely copyleft GPL licensed...

An important thing to keep in mind when using USB flash drives is that they can be used to spread viruses or malware between computers. You need to protect your valuable data, files and your private information.

Especially when you use your USB flash drives in public places like your school, university or in an internet cafe it's very important to take security seriously and take the necessary steps to protect your privacy.

Because unknown host computers and untrusted machines may compromise your data, you should always use a solid antivirus program on your primary PC. Also, it's important to update the virus definitions regularly. This way you can ensure that you well protected against the newest bad-warez, viruses and malware out there, and you'll be able to keep both your USB flash drives and your computers clean while protecting your data. So what do you do need to protect yourself?

You need a solid antivirus solution for portable SSDs, iPods and USB flash drives.
Our suggestion: ClamWin Portable.

ClamWin is a widely recognized open source antivirus scanner that is based on the ClamAV engine, a state of the art open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX that was originally designed especially for e-mail scanning and for usage on mail spools and email gateways.

Among the many features of ClamWin you'll find characteristics of a mature and sophisticated antivirus solution that is very well suitable for USB flash drives and other portable memory media such as MP3 players and iPhones. These include the following features:

• High detection rates for viruses and spyware
• Scanning Scheduler
• Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database
• Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer
• Addin to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically

In order to benefit the most from ClamWin features it's recommended that you scan your USB flash drives, your computers, netbooks and portable drives for viruses on a regular basis.

You should assume that any unknown computer that you use in an unknown or untrusted environment could be infected with a virus. Therefore you should scan your USB flash drive for viruses after having used an untrusted computer, and when you first plug your portable drive into another computer.

This way the virus will not be able to spread, as you'll detect the virus and quarantine it immediately and before you run your applications from the USB flash drives. The new computer will not be infected, and your USB flash drives stays free of virus and malware!

Remember to always wait until the drive access light has stopped blinking and then click the icon in your system tray to 'Safely Remove' your device. Never pull out a USB flash drive from a machine without "Safely Removing" first. This could damage the USB flash drive and you could loose your data!

Speaking of which - do you know the first rule of computer security?

It says this: back up your data on a regular basis!

For better redundancy you should make sure that you have several backups of the same files safely stored in several locations. Also, you should always make sure to encrypt your backups e.g with thepowerful encryption software such as TrueCrypt which is also suitable for usage on USB flash drives.

Once you start to follow these basic rules, you'll be able to enjoy running your applications from a USB flash drive without getting stuck with viruses or losing your data.

Note that we furbish your wholesale volumes of USB flash drives preloaded with ClamWin or any other GPL licensed open source software again a small service charge for the data preloading.

Ask your MemoTrek account manager for more information!

Those who really are concerned about privacy should certainly consider to run a Linux distribution with a strong security focus from their USB flash drives, such as a modified Damn Small Linux or Pendrive Linux, or even better a special and hardened Debian version that boots directly from your USB flash drive.

Stay tuned here at MemoTrek and we'll bring you more news on how to achieve a good level of security using such a USB flash drive with a pre-loaded Linux operating system!

Branded USB Drives: Promotional Strategy for Maximum Impact

Promotional flash drives branded with your company logo offer many advantages for your marketing department, and they make it easy to develop a successful USB promotional marketing strategy and increase ROI:

Branded USB flash drives merge usefulness and convenience in a way that defies any other promotional product, all at a very attractive price point.

But how do you make sure a promotional flash USB drive works within your promotional strategy? Let's look at how you can increase the impact of your USB campaign...

For example, when you buy promotional flash drives from MemoTrek, you’ll typically engrave or imprint company information onto the device, such as your company logo and your contact information in order to create branded USB drives.

But these branded drives are about you. How do you maximize the marketing impact they make on each individual customer? This critical component of a promotional strategy is often overlooked.

Take a moment and think about your customers. What can you do to - or with - the promotional flash drive to make it about them? Answering this question will sharpen your promotional strategy and clarify what to do with your newly branded USB drives.

In the end, you can make every single promotional flash drive count. Here are some ideas that will easily increase the impact of your branded USB marketing campaign:

• Go for cool
Beyond merely handing out basic branded USB drives, you can actually commission designs that reflect your products or business. And if the promotional flash drive has a “cool,” “cute” or “funny” factor working for it, you instill a positive impression on your customers every time they even glance at it.
• Provide features useful to your customers
Pre-program the promotional flash drives with clever auto-run software that both benefits your customer and requires some kind of interaction with your company. For example, as long as the software provides real value, customers will be happy to register to use it. Just be sure the promotional flash drive is useful for your customer’s needs. That’s crucial for an effective promotional strategy.
• Offer options and make it personal
When your customers have input into their promotional flash drive, they become more invested in it. Offer them a range of colors and shapes, or choices for the software that comes preloaded. Just don’t overwhelm with too many choices. To further personalize, if you buy promotional flash drives in bulk, consider inscribing common names onto the branded USB drives in addition to your own logo.

In short, do everything you can to make the promotional flash drives about your customer. This will maximize the marketing impact and the value of your promotional strategy.

Feel free to discuss your promotional strategy with your MemoTrek account manager: we're happy to share with your our rich experience and help you improve the ROI of your branded USB marketing campaign!

Can Custom Flash Drives Drive More Business?

Custom flash drives can most definitely have a beneficial impact on your bottom line, but to maximize the impact of all those branded USB drives and make sure they pay off big, you need to know a few things.

With some surprisingly simple steps, your own custom flash drives can outperform your competitors, who simply toss their own branded USB drives into the marketplace without much thought or preparation. It's easy: learn how to kick-off your own successful USB marketing campaign by using our 4-step approach to effective USB promotion.

So what do you need to do in order to drastically increase the impact of your USB marketing campaigns?

Make Your Custom Flash Drives Compelling

Your custom flash drives have a couple of hurdles to overcome. For one thing, your customers probably already have a flash drive they use, so why should they use yours? For another, many customers don’t realize just how useful those little branded USB drives can be. And there goes your custom flash drives: handed off to someone else, lost into the Desk Drawer of Disappearing Items (we all have one) or worse yet: recycled.

Solution #1: Offer features on your custom flash drives that others don’t. For example, include preloaded software like encryption or antivirus programs for security, or even portable office apps that let your customers work on the go. Talk about value-added!

Solution #2: Educate your customer. Along with the branded USB drives, offer a one-page, easy-to-read handout that offers tips and tricks on how to use your custom flash drive.

For example, do your customers know that flash drives can be used to boost RAM and improve computer performance? Or have they heard of using color- or design-coded USB drives to organize different client/category/group files?

What's New at FlashDrivePros

It's sure been a very busy Summer at FlashDrivePros!

New Products:We just launched our new ultra-secure cloud storage service that offers "security conscious" folks a way to get in on online file storage. We've also switched to a new OEM flash drive manufacturer that is building us some of thefastest, most reliable flash drives we have ever seen at a price that people can afford. Finally, we're just about ready to launch our new data recovery software. It is a wizard style application that takes you step-by-step through the process of recovering your flash drive files. We expect to release it by mid-August.

New Hires: We're happy to welcome Sean and Brian to the team. Sean, the new FlashDrivePros General Manager, brings both technical experience and many years of customer support experience with him to the Pros. When you call us with questions about flash drive recovery he is likely the first person you will speak with. He's able to diagnose most flash drive problems on the phone and is happy to answer any questions you have about our data recovery service. Brian is an electrical engineer whose circuit design experience and creativity make him an incredible flash drive troubleshooter. He specializes in repairing physically broken flash drives and diagnosing and replacing failed circuit board components and is also skilled in recovering memory cards with logical problems such bit errors and bad blocks.

New Location: To create some elbow room we moved the lab to bigger facility. The new lab is just down the street from the University of Washington which makes it easier for students with damaged flash drives to find us. It will also fit with our plans to create an internship opportunity for electrical engineer/computer science students.

New Affiliate Program: Check out our new affiliate program rules and rates to see the various ways to partner with FlashDrivePros: http://www.flashdrivepros.com/Flash-Drive-Affiliate 

So that's the update. We appreciate your support as we seek to make more and even better products and services available to a greater number of people. As always, we welcome your feedback.

How to Repair a Flash Drive

USB flash drives are great for transferring files from one computer to another, backing up important documents, or even as a storage device as long as you use aflash drive backup program. Since you’re reading this blog post, that last bit of advice is probably a day too late. As you have discovered, flash drives are fragile little devices that can break or stop working in the blink of an eye. The good news is that there is a very good chance your flash drive can be repaired. So go ahead, breathe a sigh of relief, and read on.

Repairing a flash drive with logical damage

Logical damage refers to flash drive failure at the file-system level. Bad blocks in the memory chip or a lost or corrupted MBR table are two causes of logical damage. Some common indications are a USB device not recognized notification, a drive that says it needs to be formatted, or a drive that doesn’t show up at all.

Fixing a flash drive with logical damage can often times be accomplished with free data recover software like Power Data Recovery by MiniTool. After downloading and installing PDR, Just select your drive from the list and choose Lost Partition Recovery to attempt to recover your files. If your drive is not showing up at all, try following the steps in this blog post.

How to fix a physically damaged flash drive

In most cases, flash drives become physically damaged either due to impact or failed components. Repairing a flash drive that was bent while inserted into a USB port usually involves replacing the connector or in some cases rebuilding a damaged circuit board. If we suspect a failed component or components, we will search our database to see what are the most commonly failed components for this particular flash drive and also use other troubleshooting techniques to identify the parts that need to be replaced.

If we can’t identify the failed components, don’t have the part in stock, or if the circuit board is damaged beyond repair, our next step is to remove the memory chip from the flash drive and either place it on a new flash drive or, as a last resort, place it on one of our NAND memory chip readers.

Over the years FlashDrivePros has truly become a world leader in flash drive data recovery. We have a 94% success rate and are so confident we can recover your files from your broken flash drive that we offer a 100% no data – no fee guarantee. By making our client's files available for download from our secure online server, we’re often able to recover and deliver their files in less than 24 hours.

Click here to initiate a online service request now. Or for more information, give us a call or send us an email. We’re happy to speak with you and answer any questions you have about our data recovery services or flash drive recovery in general.

The Ultimate Flash Drive Buying Guide

So you finally decided to upgrade that cheap promotional flash drive with a transfer speed measured in bytes and a lifespan measured in months. Good for you! Storing important docs on a memory stick teetering on the verge of meltdown is just not smart.

Side note: If you have already lost some important data on a broken flash drive, don’t worry! You can get your files back fast by using FlashDrivePros’s guaranteedflash drive recovery service!

What features are most important to you? 

Before even looking at what flash drives are available, it’s important to think about how you tend to use your flash drive.

• How often do you use your flash drive?
• How much data do you keep on it?
• Are most of your files big or small?
• How confidential are your files?
• Are your files backed up in other locations?

The answers to these questions will help you decide which features are most important to you in selecting the perfect flash drive.

Durability

If you use your flash drive a lot, work in a rough environment, or are just prone to breaking stuff, you will definitely want a flash drive with some durability. Not only do you need to consider the physically durability of the case and connector, but also the quality of the NAND memory chip(s) inside. Flash memory can only withstand a limited amount of use before the memory chips start to wear out. Some manufacturers use a feature called dynamic wear leveling that ensures all the memory blocks do their fair share of the work. For physical durability, you will want to find a drive with a strong, metal case and sturdy connector that won’t snap off when you bump the drive with your knee.

Capacity

Do you tend to keep just a few documents, pictures and the occasional video on your flash drive, or do you need it for transferring large amounts of data from one computer to another? Generally, you should opt for a drive that offers as much storage capacity as you will actually use on a regular basis rather than getting the biggest one money can buy. For one thing, you will save some money. Secondly, performance and durability begin to decrease with drives over 32GB.

Speed

Speed is very important factor if you plan to transfer files above a few kilobytes on a regular basis. Waiting 3 hours to transfer your MP3 collection can be very, very frustrating. For the fastest speeds available, you will want to go for a USB 3.0 compatible drive. While many cheap flash drives have transfer speeds of just 1MB/s or less, USB 3.0 drives deliver actual transfer speeds of more than 60MB/s. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 ports so you don’t have to find a 3.0 port to access your flash drive. And you will still get speeds as high as 25MB/s with USB 3.0 drives plugged into a USB 2.0 port.

Security

Work for the CIA or just really don’t want other people accessing your files? Several flash drive models come pre-loaded with component-level encryption. There are also a few software encryption programs on the market but we haven’t found anything that is user-friendly enough to use on a regular basis.

Backup

If you store anything even remotely important on your flash drive, you absolutely must have a system for regularly backing up your files! The geniuses at FlashDrivePros.com have developed a user-friendly automatic flash drive backup application called FDP Flash Drive Sync. The app is free to try and just $17 for license with free updates for life.

Having answers to these five questions should help you as you begin searching for a new flash drive. FlashDrivePros has also developed custom high quality flash driveswith these five questions in mind. Check out http://www.flashdrivepros.com/High-Speed-Flash-Drives for more details.