Beginners Guides: Essential USB Memory Drive Projects & TipsEncryption, Firefox browser, word processing, arcade games and yes even an operating system can be run off your USB hard drive... if you know how! - Version 1.0.0The USB memory key appears well on its way to replacing the floppy drive completely; as flash memory prices have dropped, these devices have become cheap enough that anyone can afford them. This, coupled with the easy support of such drives in Windows XP, has made them an extremely attractive device for anyone that needs to move files from place to place. USB memory drives are not just geek toys anymore! As you will see here though, there's a lot more you can do with your USB memory key than just transfer files. These flexible miniature storage devices can put a whole range ofportable applications, and even operating systems in your pocket.In this guide, PCstats will reveal eleven tips, tricks and projects for getting more out of your current USB memory drives than you may have known was possible. From the mundane to the insane, we're sure you'll find something here that's worth trying, so let's begin!Boot your computer with a USB drive As long as your computer's motherboard allows booting from USB devices, your system will quite happily start from a correctly formatted USB key, just as it would from a hard drive. As you would imagine, this fact has led to enterprising users putting all sorts of interesting programs and operating systems onto USB keys. We will get to some of these later in the article, but for now, let's look at how to turn your USB drive into a useful device for booting your system into DOS for troubleshooting, BIOS flashing , or any number of other purposes. The emergence of 'boot from USB' features on all newer motherboards may well prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the venerable 1.44MB floppy disk. Previously, floppy disks were still essential troubleshooting tools, as they were the only device which could easily be used to 'clean boot' a PC into DOS (or a similar OS) for troubleshooting and BIOS update purposes. Now you can use your USB drive for the same things (provided your motherboard supports the feature). Let's find out how.The first thing you need to make sure of is whether your motherboard's BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) supports booting from a USB drive. Reboot your computer, pressing the 'DEL' key several times as soon as the computer restarts. This should bring you to your system's BIOS setup screen.
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Beginners Guides: Essential USB Memory Drive Projects & Tips
Encryption, Firefox browser, word processing, arcade games and yes even an
operating system can be run off your USB hard drive... if you know how! - Version1.0.0 The USB memory key appears well on its way to replacing the floppy drive completely; as
flash memory prices have dropped, these devices have become cheap enough that anyone
can afford them. This, coupled with the easy support of such drives in Windows XP, has
made them an extremely attractive device for anyone that needs to move files from place to
place. USB memory drives are not just geek toys anymore!
As you will see here though, there's a lot more you can do with your USB memory key than
just transfer files. These flexible miniature storage devices can put a whole range of
portable applications, and even operating systems in your pocket.
In this guide, PCstats will reveal eleven tips, tricks and projects for getting more out of your
current USB memory drives than you may have known was possible. From the mundane to
the insane, we're sure you'll find something here that's worth trying, so let's begin!
Boot your computer with a USB drive
As long as your computer's motherboard allows booting from USB devices, your system will
quite happily start from a correctly formatted USB key, just as it would from a hard drive.
As you would imagine, this fact has led to enterprising users putting all sorts of interestingprograms and operating systems onto USB keys.
We will get to some of these later in the article, but for now, let's look at how to turn your
USB drive into a useful device for booting your system into DOS for troubleshooting, BIOS
flashing , or any number of other purposes.
The emergence of 'boot from USB' features on all newer motherboards may well prove to be
the final nail in the coffin for the venerable 1.44MB floppy disk. Previously, floppy disks were
still essential troubleshooting tools, as they were the only device which could easily be used
to 'clean boot' a PC into DOS (or a similar OS) for troubleshooting and BIOS update
purposes. Now you can use your USB drive for the same things (provided your motherboard
supports the feature). Let's find out how.
The first thing you need to make sure of is whether your motherboard's BIOS (Basic
Input/Output System) supports booting from a USB drive. Reboot your computer, pressing
the 'DEL' key several times as soon as the computer restarts. This should bring you to your
using a floppy disk. If you have a floppydrive on your system, insert a blank disk
and double click on 'my computer.' Right
click the floppy drive and choose
'format.' Make sure the 'create a
bootable system disk' option is checked.
This will add the system files you need
on your USB drive to the floppy. Click
'ok' to format the disk.
When the formatting process is finished,
download the HP USB disk storagetool from here and install it. It isintended for HP removable drives, butwe've found that it works just fine onevery USB drive we tried. Using thissoftware and the system files nowcontained on your floppy disk, you canmake your USB drive bootable. To do this, plug in your USB drive andrun the HP USB disk storage tool. Ensure that the tool has found the correct drive in the 'device' window. Change the filesystem to 'FAT.' Check the 'create a DOS startup disk' option, and in the 'using DOS systemfiles located at' window, enter 'a:\' to point the program to your floppy disk. Now click'start.' The program will create the necessary boot files on your USB device. Reboot your system (with the BIOS set to boot from the USB drive) to check that it works.If all goes well, your system should 'clean boot' to the A: prompt. You can now customizeyour new boot drive with whatever programs and utilities you need. If you do not have a floppy drive, you can obtain the necessary boot files from severallocations on the Internet including here. Extract the zip file to a directory and point the HPUSB disk storage tool to that directory for boot files. R un Linux on a USB device
The most obvious and desirable use for a
bootable USB key is to cart your entire operating system around in your pocket.
Enterprising Linux enthusiasts have made it possible to do just that. Linux (in case you didn't know) is an open-source, Unix-derived operating system. As it is
open-source, people are free to experiment and re-invent the code in new ways. This has
led to many interesting Linux operating system variants, the most useful of these being the
'live' Linux distributions which boot and run the entire operating system from a single CD or
other storage device. Regardless of the operating system that might be installed on the
system's hard drive, booting from the 'live' CD will load and run Linux instead. The
advantages of this are obvious. You can have a familiar environment and set of applications
with you wherever you travel.
Recently, some of the smaller 'live' Linux distributions have been re-engineered to work
from USB drives. These portable operating systems use the system's memory for
performing operations, and your flash disk as the 'hard drive' for storing personal data. The
rewritable nature of USB disks actually makes them a better platform for portable operating
systems than CDs. For now, let's look at one of the easiest of these 'flash' Linux distros to
get to grips with; Puppy Linux.
Puppy Linux was originally a 'live CD' Linux distribution notable for its extremely smallfootprint. All applications load fully into memory (on a machine with 128MB of RAM or
more), making loads from the CD non-existent. Fairly recently, instructions and a wizard for creating a USB drive-based version of Puppywere included on the CD. This 'Flash Puppy' operating system is what we'll use for thepurposes of this article, as it is incredibly simple to set up and run. Your USB drive shouldbe formatted with the FAT file system (not FAT32) before you begin this process. To do this,right click the removable drive in 'my computer,' choose the 'format' option, then choose'FAT' as the file system. Do not do a quick format. First things first: You need to go to the puppy Linux site and download the latest version of their 'live-puppy' operating system. This will come in the form of an .ISO file which you canuse to create a CD with the CD burning software of your choice. If you need help with this
process, see our guide here.We used Puppy Linux version 0.9.6 for the purposes of thisarticle. Once you have created the Puppy Linux Live CD, boot your system from the CD to load thePuppy Linux OS (note that you may need to change the boot options in your BIOS to bootfrom CD. You will be asked if you wish to use a USB drive as a storage device for personaldata. Hit ENTER for no, since we have another use in mind for your USB drive! Choose the 'US QWERTY' keyboard layout (or whatever is appropriate), enter your mousetype (PS/2 or USB), then choose an appropriate (and safe) graphics resolution. Whateveryou normally use on your Windows desktop should be fine here. Now that you are on thePuppy Linux desktop (Puppy uses the FVWM Windows manager by default), go to the
familiar 'start' button in the bottom corner, open it up and go to 'utilities\install puppy USBdrive.' This will start the USB installation dialog. This very friendly and simple wizard will walk you through the process of installing Puppy onyour USB device (note that you will need at least a 64MB USB key to do this). There are acouple of things that need to be changed though.You will need to type the address of yourUSB drive as displayed in the dialog. If you have only the one drive plugged into thesystem, this will generally be '/dev/sda1'
Assuming you formatted your drive cleanly with the FAT file system as instructed, enter Nfor no when the dialog asks for permission to erase all files on the drive. You will also needto specify a keyboard layout also. Choose 'US' if you are in the US or English-speakingCanada. The final choice you need to make is between the two possible installation modes.Mode 1 will allow you to access documents you created in Linux from a Windows operatingsystem, provided you have applications that can open them correctly. Mode 2 will not, but
may run more efficiently. The process will now format and install the necessary files on your USB drive. When it isfinished, reboot and set your computer's BIOS to boot from the USB drive as instructed inthe first part of this article. Congratulations! You now have a fully functional pocketoperating system at your disposal, complete with the Firefox web browser and ABIwordword processor. Now start learning Linux! Private email encryption application
If you are using email on a foreign or public computer or Internet connection and you are
worried about the privacy of your correspondence, we have a solution for you. The CryptoAnywhere program is a free, portable email encryption program capable of both
sending encoded email and decrypting returning messages. With this program, you can
send email securely from any location without worrying about your privacy being
compromised, and you can download similarly encrypted messages and decode them safely
within the program itself.
This has several obviously useful applications. If you are not keen on the idea of your emailcorrespondence being monitored at work, this is one solution. To use the CryptoAnywhereapplication, download the file and install the program.
Run CryptoAnywhere and create your first 'identity' with your email address and mail serverwhen prompted. The password is used to decrypt emails sent to you, so remember it. Oncethis is completed, click the 'create a travel floppy' button along the left side of the screen.
Enter the drive letter of your USB device or use the browse button to locate it. Thenecessary files will be copied to your USB drive. You can now use CryptoAnywhere(complete with the identity you just created) anywhere you can plug in your USB drive. When you send mail with CryptoAnywhere, the program adds the encrypted message to an
attachment and prompts you for a password which the recipient can use to decrypt themessage. To send mail, simply click the 'new message' button, enter the address, messagetext and any attachments then click 'encipher and send.' USB travel kit A) Portable web
browser
Using the Internet away from home can be an annoying experience. Despite the ubiquitous
presence of Internet Explorer, you may still miss your favourites list and the other comforts
of a home-trained browser. Thanks to one enterprising user, you can now take your browser
with you wherever you go.
The Mozilla Firefox web browser is an excellent alternative to Internet Explorer, and thisportable version of it will run completely from a USB key, so you can always have a familiar
web surfing experience. Best of all, it takes up very little space on the USB drive itself, so
there's no reason not to try it.
Simply download the latest file from here, unzip it to your USB drive and run the
'portablefirefox.exe' file from the device to start the browser.
history or cache web pages, so browsing back through previously loaded pages will be
slower than a 'regular' web browser, but we think that's a small price to pay for the benefits
this package offers.
USB travel kit B) portable email client
If you thought the portable browser listed above was useful, how about having your email
client with you at all times? All you need is Internet access and you can send and retrieve
email at will from your own address book without compromising your security or privacy.
Thunderbird is Mozilla's email client counterpart to the Firefox browser. The same clever
fellow responsible for the portable Firefox browser modification has also made this program
portable. Again, installation is very simple. Download the latest version from here. Unzip the
archive onto your USB drive.
Now run the 'portablethunderbird.exe' file to start the
application. If you've used Outlook Express, Thunderbird
should seem instantly familiar.
All your current addresses can be easily imported from
Outlook Express or Outlook by going to 'tools\import' and
selecting 'address books.' The same goes for your existing email folders. You can transplant
your entire email system onto your flash drive if you'd like.
This is an excellent tool for the road warrior or student, as it makes communicating from
the office, public computers or Internet cafes much, much easier.
USB travel kit C) portable word
processor
To finish up our trifecta of essential portable applications, how about the AbiWord word
processor? This complete cross-platform writing tool has the distinction of working perfectly
well when installed on a USB device, something you can't say about Word or Wordperfect. Happily, installation is incredibly easy again. Download the file from here , run the installer
and set your USB drive as the target. During the installation process, choose not to create a
Basically, the briefcase creates offline copies of all of your files
which can then be moved to any other system and worked on.
Returning the briefcase to your original system allows you to
update your files with any changes you made while away.
To use the briefcase application on your USB drive: Create a new briefcase on the desktopby right clicking on an empty area and selecting 'new\briefcase.' Now locate any files you
wish to add to the briefcase and drag them onto the briefcase icon. This will create copies of
the files in your briefcase. Double click the briefcase icon.
Now Drag and drop the briefcase to your USB drive. Now you can take the USB drive to
your other system. Double click the briefcase icon to open it, then work on your files inside
it. Do not move the files out of the briefcase. Instead, open the files within the briefcase
folder in order to edit them.
When you return the briefcase to the original computer, double click the icon again to open
it. Note that the 'status' of any files that you edited has been changed to 'needs updating.'
Select 'update all items' from the 'briefcase tasks' section on the left.
A window will open illustrating the changes that will be made to the original documents to
bring them into line with the ones in the briefcase. Confirm the changes and click 'update' to
carry out the operation. All the original files will be updated with the changes you made on
your other system. For more information on file synchronization, see our guide here.
Format a USB drive with NTFS file
system
By default, Windows XP will not allow you to use anything but the FAT and FAT32 file
systems to format your USB drives. With a little fiddling you can also enable the NTFS file
system on your removable devices though. As for whether you would want to, there are
Now open 'my computer,' right click on the removable drive and select 'format.' You will
have the option to format to NTFS in the 'file system' dropdown box.
Create permanent folders and share over a
network
An interesting feature of Windows XP's handling of USB drives is the way it assigns them
locations and drive letters. As you know, Windows will happily assign any USB storage
device the next available drive letter when it is plugged in, then reclaim the letter when the
drive is unplugged. It will just as happily assign the same drive letter to a different storage
device you plug in later. So far, not very useful... The interesting part comes in if you decide
to mount a USB drive as a folder in one of your permanent hard disks. The storage manager in Windows XP, like Windows 2000 before it, allows you to mount a
partition (which would normally be represented with a drive letter like c: or d:) as a
directory inside a different partition. Using this method, you could add a new hard drive to
your computer and mount it in a directory on your existing c: drive called 'new drive,' forexample. The target drive (where the directory is located) must be formatted with the NTFS
file system to do this.
This is already a cool feature, but it takes on a new twist when used with USB drives,
especially if you use more than one drive on your system or network. While drive letters are
assigned dynamically, drive mount locations as we described above are not. The upshot of
this is, if you give your USB drive a folder location, that particular drive will be associated
Click 'ok.' Your USB drive is now permanently assigned to the new folder you created. When
it is plugged in, the drive is accessible like any other folder on the disk you chose. When the
drive is unplugged, the folder will still appear as normal, but will be inaccessible. You can
share this folder over a network just as you would with any other folder. Share permissions
will be removed and restored as the drive is removed and returned.
Repeat this procedure with your other USB storage devices, creating a new directory for
each. Now each of your devices has its own particular identity on your network.
Take your favourite media playerwith you
Here's a handy and fun use for any USB drive. Several freely available media player
software packages (such as certain versions of Winamp) do not require registry entries torun. What this means is that they can be effectively run off any computer without
installation. You might already use your USB flash drive to carry music and other media files from
computer to computer. Why not carry around the program to play them with as well?
Simply copy the player and your files to a directory on the computer you have plugged into
(or even run the player from the drive) and enjoy your media files!
Here's links to a couple of media player applications that can be run straight from their
executable files, and will thus work fine on USB drives: Zoom Player (video and music)
and XMPlay (audio only). Simply download the files, unzip them to your USB drive, add your
media files and move out!
Carry a bootable, portable arcade on your USB drive
Bored in class? Need something to make your off time at work pass faster but can't install
games? How about having an entire arcade on your USB drive?
AdvanceMAME is an open-source emulator for arcade games, the kind you might have used
to play in the days before Playstation. This in itself is not novel. MAME (Multiple Arcade
Machine Emulator) and its variants have been around for ages. What is novel is that the
latest release of AdvanceMAME (2.4.0 as of this article), supports booting from USB drive.
AdvanceMAME, like all MAME versions, uses ROM files, images of the original arcademachine programs you might have played. Generally these files are copyrighted, but you
can find many legal ROMS on the Internet. AdvanceMAME comes with three games to get
you started, and a menu system so intuitive that it's not even worth describing.
To install AdvanceMAME on your USB key, download the latest files from here and unzip
them to a folder on your hard drive. Now plug in your USB drive and format it (right click
the drive in 'my computer' and choose format). Use the FAT file system.
Navigate to the folder that you unzipped the AdvanceMAME files to and double click the
'makeusb' batch file. A DOS window will open and begin the process of installing the
necessary boot files onto your USB drive. Once the install is complete, simply boot any
system with the USB drive to load AdvanceMAME and start playing.
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