The USB Flash Drive: A Linux Newbie's Best Friend

Recently, we covered the learning curve of a dedicated Windows user who imposed a 30-day immersion into Ubuntu on himself. Not surprisingly, installing Ubuntu, and some of the new kinds of hoops he had to jump through to do so, were among his chief complaints. Many dedicated Windows and Mac OS users don't realize that with a simple USB Flash drive, you can avoid having to install Linux locally altogether. There is much more you can do to dive quickly into using Linux with a Flash drive, whether you choose to locally install it on a computer or not, and here are some of the best resources toward this end.
CNet has a good visual tutorial up called "What to do with your USB Flash drive: Run Linux." The site notes:
"A Linux Live USB flash drive is a great way to try out Linux without making any changes to your computer. It's also handy to have around in case Windows won't boot--allowing access to your hard disks--or if you just want to run a system memory test."
The tutorial focuses on how to put Ubuntu on a USB Flash drive, after which a user can run Ubuntu directly from the Flash drive without having to fully install it on a computer. It also details how the site Pendrivelinux.com allows for the Flash drive installation in a couple of easy steps.
We've covered Pendrivelinux a number of times. The site lets you install many different types of Linux distros on a USB Flash drive, and turn Flash drives into easy ways to locally install Linux on a computer if you choose to. Pendrivelinux functions like a blog, with ongoing tutorials for lots of Linux distros that you can get going on a USB drive.
It also collects many useful posts for creating Boot CDs for Linux variants. In addition, it houses PenDriveApps, which is an awesome, categorized archive of portable applications for Windows, the Mac and Linux.WIth it, you can easily find everything from portable FTP applications, to portable media players, to portable translation applications.
For much more you can do with open source applications and a USB Flash drive, also look into PortableApps and MacLibre. These sites let you put a bushel of open source applications on a USB Flash drive, after which you can run them from any computer.

USB drive found in a pub contained data of 26,000 tenants

Storing data is getting easier by the day. First, it was computers, followed by laptops, net-books and now it is the pen-drive. Just hang it on your shirt or carry it in your pocket. That is movable data. It is a boon but at the same time, a curse if you do not keep it safely guarded.

A serious data breach

There was a recent case of a USB drive found unattended in a pub in South London. The drive contained carried data of around 26,000 social housing tenants and bank details of some 800 tenants


Breach details

Apparently, the USB drive owner worked for housing associations Lewisham Homes and Wandle Housing Association. The data belonged to the tenants of these housing associations. The USB drive was seen lying in the All Inn One pub. The authorities were immediately notified; fortunately, the data was not compromised.

According to Sally-Anne Poole, acting head of Enforcement at the ICO “Saving personal information on to an unencrypted memory stick is as risky as taking hard copy papers out of the office. Luckily, there is no suggestion that the data was misused. But this incident could so easily have been avoided if the information had been properly protected.”

The Lewisham Homes and Wandle Housing Association had breached the 1998 Data Protection Act by not encrypting the information of 26,000 people.

Action taken by the ICO

The ICO gave the housing bodies a stern warning and made them aware that they had clearly breached the Data Protection Act. Had the stick gotten into the hands of a hacker, all hell would have broken loose.

Reactions by security experts

According to Edy Almer, VP of product management at Safend: “It is good to see that data stored on the USB was most likely not compromised and that the immediate response from the breached party was to make things right. It is important to note it was a third party contractor that lost the data and not trained internal staff, thus highlighting the need to selectively block or encrypt all devices connecting to your network in order to protect sensitive data.”

Mark Fullbrook, UK and Ireland director at Cyber-Ark’ reacted: “This is yet another example of the poor data protection policies operating within organisations today. Using a memory stick to transport sensitive information may be convenient, but it’s certainly not secure and whilst in this case the memory stick was returned to its rightful owners, should it have fallen into the wrong hands the repercussions could have been severe”

Action taken by the housing associations

Lewisham Homes has revised its data security procedure and the contractor/owner of the stick has been dismissed.

What can be done to protect data?

Using encrypted software is the need of the hour. Be it an organization or an individual, if you are carrying data, it has to be protected, no matter how what it is.

Use Alertsec

Organisations, especially corporate giants, have to have an information security policy in place that proves they have taken necessary steps and measures to safeguard the information they gathered. If these policies are not adhered to, the regulators may prosecute.

Alertsec Xpress is used by organizations that have recognized the need to protect their information. Customers range from single-user sole traders and consultants to multinational companies with a large number of offices around the globe. Over 4 million users worldwide use Alertsec Xpress’s Check Point Full Disk Encryption

How to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 8 Developer Preview

Like many folks, after watching the BUILD keynote this morning, I couldn't wait to get home and install Windows 8 Developer Preview on my laptop. The instructions for installing Windows 8 are simple enough. The only fly in the ointment is that installing Windows 8 requires a DVD to create an install package.

Of course, since I haven't used an optical drive in years, I didn't have a blank DVD and I didn't want to wait until the morning to buy some. But I did have a USB flash drive and so I decided to create a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 8.

To create a bootable USB flash drive the easy way, you can download the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool from the Microsoft Store. If you feel adventurous and are comfortable with command line tools, below are the step-by-step instructions for installing Windows 8 Developer Preview from a USB flash drive. But be warned, if you are not comfortable with command line tools, downloading the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool is a much better option and will save you the effort of reading the remainder of this blog.

Instructions (using the command line)
At a high level, the steps are:

Mount the Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO image on your computer
Format a USB flash drive
Copy the Windows 8 files onto the USB flash drive
Make the USB flash drive bootable
Install Windows 8 from the bootable flash drive

Step 1: Mount the Windows 8 Developer Preview ISO image on your computer
The first step is to mount the ISO image on your computer. Since Windows 7 doesn’t have the capability to mount an ISO image, you’ll have to use a 3rd party tool.

Download the Windows Developer Preview ISO image (choose one of the three available)
Using your favorite ISO image software, mount the ISO image on your computer
To check that the ISO image mounted successfully, you should be able to browse the Windows 8 files, as shown below.



Step 2: Format a USB flash drive
In case you’re wondering how big of a USB flash drive you need, an 8GB drive is perfect since it can accommodate any of the three available ISO images. Here are the steps to format a USB flash drive.

Insert a USB flash drive into your computer
Start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and type diskpart. This starts the Disk Partition tool which you need to use to format the flash drive. Once you see the DISKPART command prompt, type in the following commands
DISKPART> list disk /* shows list of active disks */
DISKPART> select disk # /* # is the number for your USB flash drive */
DISKPART> clean /* deletes any existing partitions on the USB flash drive */
DISKPART> create partition primary /* create a primary partition on the USB flash drive */
DISKPART> select partition 1 /* select the newly created partition */
DISKPART> active /* make the new partition active */
DISKPART> format FS=NTFS /* format the USB drive with NTFS file system */
DISKPART> assign /* assign a volume and drive letter to the USB drive */
DISKPART> exit /* exit Disk Partition */
At this point, your USB flash drive should be showing up in Windows Explorer and have a drive letter assigned to it, e.g. F:\.

Step 3: Make the USB flash drive bootable
We just need to make the USB flash drive bootable before copying the files. To do this, you can use the Boot Sector Registration Tool (bootsect.exe) which is located in the boot folder of the Windows 8 ISO image.

Start a Command Prompt as an Administrator and CHDIR into the boot folder of the Windows 8 ISO image, e.g. I:\boot where I:\ is the drive where the ISO image is mounted
Type bootsect /nt60 E: /* where E: is the drive assigned to the USB flash drive */
You should see the following confirmation after bootsec.exe completes:



Step 4: Copy the Windows 8 files onto the USB flash drive
From a command line, use XCOPY to copy the Windows 8 files to the USB flash drive . In the example below, I:\ is the drive where the ISO image is mounted. F:\ is the USB flash drive.

XCOPY I:\*.* F:\ /E /F /H

Step 5: Install Windows 8 from the bootable flash drive
Finally, follow these instructions to install Windows 8 on your computer.

Remove your USB flash drive from your "source" computer and insert it into the "target" computer where you want to install Windows 8
On the computer where you are installing Windows 8, press the power button to turn on the computer
During boot up, select the USB flash drive to boot from (if you don't see the USB flash drive as an option, you may have to adjust your BIOS settings)
Follow the instructions to install Windows 8 Developer Preview
Here is a screen shot from the boot manager on my computer showing the USB flash drive as an option.



I installed Windows 8 Developer Preview on a vanilla Dell Inspiron 15R laptop which unfortunately doesn't have touch (or any other sensors for that matter).



The personalization steps in Windows 8 Developer Preview are really quick.





And here is the final screenshot of my shiny new Windows 8 installation!

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USB flash drive to be a Windows 7 installation platform

In a recent 10 Things blog, “10 Cool Things You Can Do with a USB Flash Drive,” I presented 10 tasks that you can perform with a flash drive, including booting an operating system. However, I have since discovered a technique on the Microsoft TechNet Magazine site that describes how you can use a USB flash drive to install Windows 7.

This technique is very cool for two reasons: First, a flash drive is much more responsive than an optical drive, since it doesn’t rely on physically moving components, so the installation procedure will be faster. Second, it provides an easy way to install Microsoft Windows 7 on a system that doesn’t have a DVD drive, such as a netbook.

Since this technique would be a valuable addition to the 10 Things list as well as to users planning on installing Windows 7 on a netbook or who want to be able to quickly and easily install Windows 7, such as the Family Pack, on multiple systems without having to mess around with a DVD, I thought that I would examine the technique.

In this edition of the Windows Vista and Windows 7 Report, I’ll show you how to use the DiskPart utility to configure a bootable USB flash drive that you can then use to install the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system.

This blog post is also available in PDF format in a free TechRepublic download.

Getting started

Of course, in order to employ this technique you’ll need a USB flash drive that is big enough to hold the contents of the Windows 7 DVD. The Windows 7 RC DVD is about 2.5GB, and you can expect that the RTM DVD will be at least that if not more. For my test system I am using a 4GB USB flash drive.

Keep in mind that the procedure we will use will completely reformat the USB flash drive. So you want to make sure that you back up any data that you have on the drive before you begin.

The systems on which you want to install Windows 7 via the USB flash drive have to be able to be configured to boot from a USB drive. Most new systems have the capability to boot from a USB flash drive, and the operation can usually be configured in the BIOS or by simply pressing a certain key during bootup. You’ll need to check your specific hardware in order to be sure.

Using the DiskPart utility

As you may know, the DiskPart utility is a command-line version of the Disk Management snap-in and is designed to allow you to manage disks, partitions, or volumes from within scripts or directly from a command prompt. We can use the DiskPart command in Windows Vista or in Windows 7 to configure a USB flash drive to be a bootable device. (Keep in mind that Windows XP’s DiskPart command is unable to create a bootable USB flash drive.)

To begin, connect your USB flash drive to a computer on which you will be preparing the drive. For my example, I’ll be using a Windows Vista system.

Now, locate the command Prompt shortcut on the Start menu, right-click on it, and select the Run as Administrator command. Then, respond appropriately to the UAC. You can now launch the DiskPart utility by typing DiskPart on the command line. You’ll then see the DISKPART prompt, as shown in Figure A.

Figure A



DiskPart has its own command-line environment complete with a special prompt.

Now that you’re in the DiskPart environment, you’ll need to locate the USB flash drive using the List Disk command. As you can see in Figure B, the List Disk command has identified my USB flash drive as Disk 5. I can verify that my USB flash drive is indeed Disk 5 by checking the Size column, which lists the size as 3906MB, which is roughly 4GB.

Figure B



Using the List Disk command displays all the disks in the system.

(If you have difficulty identifying your USB flash drive using the List Disk command, you can try the List Volume command, which will provide the drive letter as well as the label, both of which can help you to identify the drive.)

Once you identify the drive number of your USB flash drive, you will need to set the focus of the DiskPart environment on that disk. (This is an extremely important step–Make sure that you select the correct drive or you could accidentally destroy valuable data!) On my example, the USB flash drive is Disk 5, so I will use the command Select Disk 5, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C



To shift the focus over to the USB flash drive you’ll use the Select Disk command.

Now that your USB flash drive has the focus, you need to remove all the partition or volume formatting information from the disk. To do that, you’ll use the Clean command. The Clean operation should occur rather quickly. When it is done, you will see a success message like the one shown in Figure D.

Figure D



In order to start with a clean slate, you’ll use the Clean command to remove all partition and volume information from the USB flash drive.

You’ll now use the Create Partition Primary command to create a primary partition on the disk. After you create the partition, you will see a success message and the focus will automatically shift to the new partition. You’ll use the Active command to mark the partition as active, as shown in Figure E. Marking the partition as active will essentially allow the BIOS to recognize that the partition is a valid bootable system partition.

Figure E



Using the Create Partition Primary and the Active commands, you’ll create a bootable partition on the USB flash drive.

With the partition created and active, you’re now ready to quickly format the drive and set up the FAT32 file system using the Format fs=FAT32 quick command. (While you could format the drive as NTFS, the typical way to format a USB flash drive is to use FAT32.) Once the drive is formatted, you’ll use the Assign command, as shown in Figure F, to allow the drive to be assigned a drive letter.

Figure F



To complete the preparation, you’ll format the drive and assign it a drive letter.

The USB flash drive is now ready. At this point, you can use the Exit command to exit the DiskPart environment and then close the Command Prompt window.

Copying the Windows 7 files

Copying the Windows 7 files is easy. Just open Windows Explorer, access the Windows 7 DVD, select all the files and folders, and then drag and drop them on the USB flash drive icon, as shown in Figure G. Keep in mind that the copy operation will take a little while to complete.

Figure G



Once the USB flash drive is ready to go, you can copy all the files and folders from the Windows 7 DVD to the newly prepared bootable drive.

Installing Windows 7 from the USB flash drive

With the contents of the Windows 7 DVD on a bootable USB flash drive, installing the operating system is a snap. Just boot the system from the USB drive and the installation procedure will begin as it normally would, as shown in Figure H. However, the installation procedure will actually run quicker off a USB flash drive since it doesn’t contain any physically moving components.

Figure H



Once the system boots from the USB flash drive, the Windows 7 installation will begin as normal, but it will actually run faster.

What’s your take?

Have you ever wanted to be able to install an operating system from a USB flash drive? Now that you know how to do it, are you likely to employ this technique to install Windows 7 on a Netbook or on multiple computers? As always, if you have comments or information to share about these topics, please take a moment to drop by the TechRepublic Community Forums and let us hear from you.

Germany leads Europe for USB drive data security

The Ponemon Institute research also denotes marked differences in the approach and implementation of USB drive security from country to country.
The European study confirms the pressing need for organizations to adopt more secure USB products and policies. A total of 3,204 IT practitioners with an average of 10.75 years of IT or IT security experience in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Nordics, Netherlands, Switzerland and Poland, were surveyed and all acknowledged the importance of USB drives from a productivity standpoint.
Across Europe, 71 percent of respondents confirmed that their companies do not have the technologies to prevent or quickly detect the download of confidential data onto USB drives by unauthorized individuals.
The statistic shows most organizations are ignoring the risks of using unencrypted USB drives, resulting in most companies – 62 percent of those questioned – having suffered a loss of confidential or sensitive data because of missing USB drives in the last two years.
When comparing individual European countries, perceptions and practices about the importance of USB security is highest in Germany – with 62 percent agreeing that their organization has an adequate USB security policy in place to prevent employee misuse.
On the contrary, France and Poland are most at risk as a result of employees’ practices – 85 percent of respondents in France and 83 percent in Poland say that employees use USB drives without obtaining advance permission to do so.
Evidence of widespread compromise is apparent:
75 percent of respondents say employees in their companies are using USB drives without obtaining advance permission to do so.
A staggering 63 percent of respondents confirmed employees lose USB drives without notifying appropriate authorities all the time or very frequently.
France, UK and Poland have the highest rate of data breach as a result of a missing USB drives.

secure USB drive

Taking inspiration from Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, a US startup has fused a USB flash drive with a ‘Cryptex’ device, a metal cylinder that can only be opened by setting the correct combination on a rotating barrel.

The latest Crypteks (notice the different spelling) is not the first device of its kind – designs have been circulating on the Internet since the Da Vinci code resurrected what is probably an older idea – but it does look like the most interesting to date.

The external 8cm barrel comprises five aluminium alloy rotating rings on which each has printed the 26 letters of the English alphabet. Removing the USB flash drive from within the cylinder involves entering the correct combination of which there are 14,348,907 possible combinations thanks to the decision to adopt letters on each ring rather than numbers.

The USB drive contained within the barrel uses 256-bit AES encryption, adding another layer of security to the physical design, with a customisable auto-format option for incorrectly-entered passwords.

If you like the Crypteks is really a sophisticated version of the common barrel combination lock which happens to contain a secure USB drive.

Some might see it as over-engineered. Secure USB keys employing AES encryption can nowadays be bought fairly cheaply and offer good levels of security for the money. The barrel device added by the Crypteks doesn’t appear to offer much added security for what is a considerable price premium. It is not clear whether the concealed USB drive is also tamper proof.

The Michigan-based designers claim they have enough money via the online Kickstarter incubator to start manufacturing the drives “in time for the holidays.”

The development model requires seed backers to pledge money in return for drives. Capacities will be 4GB, 8GB, 16GB. The price has yet to be announced by works out at around $150 for the 16GB drive for every sponsor backing the project.

USB Flash Memory: Premium Storage

data: USB flash drives, CDs and other physical media, external hard drives, online storage in the cloud...
So what are USB flash drive advantages compared to all the alternatives? Are USB flash drives the best storage solution commonly available today?

The most honest answer is: sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on your particular needs. But USB flash drives are best is one respect: it’s always the most flexible choice. So let’s look into this and compare the advantages of each storage option and one at a time...

USB flash drive advantages over CDs

CDs are a wonderful archiving solution: you can burn your data to a CD-R or CD-RW, and then store the CD in a safe (preferably fire-proof) place. It’s also an easy-to-mail solution. But for everyday use, USB flash drive advantages outnumber the benefits of CDs.

USB drives offer orders of magnitude more storage than CDs. A single USB drive can hold the equivalent of a dozen CDs and still fit in your pocket! Plus, USB drives can house programs in addition to data: it’s possible to run an entire operating system off a USB drive. While you can do this with a LiveCD, you can’t save your personal customizations, configurations or data to a CD the way you can a USB. Advantage: USB flash best.

USB flash drive advantages over external hard drives

Here, the opposite is true: external hard drives offers much higher storage capacities than a USB drive. If you have a lot of data to store - maybe a music or video collection - that you might want to hook up to different local computers, an external hard drive could work well.

But for true portability, is USB flash best here too? Yes. External hard drives are portable only compared to internal hard drives, but they can’t compete with a USB drive. Plus, flash drives use solid-state memory, meaning there are no moving parts. Hard drives with those moving parts are much more susceptible to damage and lost data when being moved around.

USB flash drive advantages over online storage

Tons of services allow you to store files online. This is a great solution for easy, near-universal access. However, its flexibility again makes USB flash best. First, USB drives can run your preferred programs and operating systems in addition to storing data. Second, you don’t need an internet connection to work off a USB drive. Third, if the internet connection is painfully slow, a USB drive will zip along at its own speed. This is a major advantage to flash: speed. Finally, if you’re working from a location whose firewall prohibits access to the sites with your files you’d be surprised how often legit sites get inadvertently blocked, you can still get to your files with a USB drive.

Your priorities decide if these USB flash drive advantages make USB flash best for your needs.

In short, we can’t really answer the question in all situations because it depends. So you tell us: is USB flash best for you? Can you think of advantages we’ve missed? We can say without hesitation that a USB flash drive has the advantage in adaptability: it can simply do more, more quickly and more easily than any other single alternative.

Thank you for your questions! Subscribe to our RSS feeds for future answers, and send us an email with your own question!

Making a Choice Between Large Versus Small Capacity USB Flash Drives

We’ve all been there—you have a few or more gigs of digital data and you need to figure out where to store it. The question is, do you invest in a larger capacity USB flash drive or multiple smaller drives? Size does matter to an extent in these circumstances except that there’s not a universal answer. Before you take the purchase plunge, here are a few key factors that could affect your decision.
- A large capacity custom flash drive will give you more space for your money. Generally, more storage translates into a significant price decrease that can be seen with the addition of every gig. For example, a 1GB drive may cost you $6 while an 8GB drive can be bought for just two dollars more.
- Consider your storage plans. If you will need to hold some extremely large files (1GB or 2GB apiece) a smaller flash drive may not have the room or speed performance of a larger drive. What’s more is that you may not want to divide one project into multiple parts for smaller USB flash drives because it could just create unnecessary prep work for you.
- Think about separating work and play. One advantage to having several smaller flash drives as opposed to a more than 8GB USB drive is that you can designate roles to each device to better organize your files. After all, who would want to mix family vacation photos alongside your corporate PowerPoint presentation?
- Check its specs. A few larger capacity flash drives use 3-bit MLC NAND chips. While these allow more storage per cell, some have been known to be less than reliable compared to sturdier SLC counterparts. A higher risk of data loss is the last thing you need with a large document, video or library of pictures.
- Back it up. Premium USB has always taken steps to strongly reiterate the importance of backing up all of your data. Multiple small capacity USB flash drives may give some extra reassurance—not putting all of your eggs in one basket so to speak. However, should you choose an 8GB, 16GB, 32GB flash drive or higher, consider also investing in another form of backup, be it extra custom USB drives or CDs and DVDs. There are countless storage combinations; the end result is up to your needs.
Which flash drive storage method do you prefer? One larger USB flash drive or a bunch of smaller ones?

Flat Rate Pricing Explained

We at FlashDrivePros.com get asked all the time if our listed prices are truly "flat rate," or if we are going to raise the price once we have the flash drive in our possession. The answer is that we never, even raise the price for our data recovery services once we receive a flash drive. We believe that having a simple, transparent, flat-rate pricing system gives our customers the peace of mind of knowing exactly how much they will spend before ever sending us their flash drive. The only time we would ever require any additional money would be if we had to order parts, which is rare. So if other companies’ price structures seem confusing, we’re happy to offer one that makes sense, and more importantly, won’t leave you paying several hundred percent more than you expected.

Here are some tips to consider no matter what company you choose to recovery your data:

Get a full explanation of the cost before you ship - Make sure the rate is clear. If you send your flash drive and get a different rate after it arrives, your only options are to either pay the higher rate or have them return the drive, which can takes weeks from some providers.
Make sure they are reputable - verify testimonials, just because they have worked with big entities or have published "quotes" on their website, does not mean they are the best choice.
Confusing rate explanation - if the provider makes it confusing by adding tons of explanation on how to quote you, just run! Watch out for the "*" asterisks and read the fine print, if you can find it.
Don't choose just by price alone - often times we choose the cheapest provider, and end up costing us more down the road. Choose by reputation, reliability and guarantee.
Yes, Guarantee - is worth repeating. If they can't fix it, you shouldn't have to pay.