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10 Tricks With A USB Thumb Drive

22 October 2008 29,047 views 28 Comments



Any ordinary USB memory device can do a lot more than you probably thought it could. It can carry programs, encryption and even a full installation of Windows XP! Here is our tenlist for the coolest things you can do with a USB thumb drive:

Take your programs with you

We all know how frustrating it is when we take your files to another computer just to discover that the software required to read the files is not installed.

Here’s the simplest solution – take your programs with you – on your USB thumb drive. Here’s how to do it with Portable Apps:

1. Go to the Portable Apps website and download the installer, choosing the software you want to carry along.

2. Run the installer and install the software to the root of your USB thumb drive.

And you’re done! As soon as you connect your thumb drive into a computer, Portable Apps will open up automatically.

Surf anonymously

With Portable Apps and Firefox, you can surf the web without leaving any trace on the computer you are using. If you want extra security, install a Firefox security plugin such as FoxyProxy. To iput Firefox onto the drive, just copy-paste the Firefox folder from you computer, or install Firefox onto the thumb drive.

Set a program to run automatically (autorun)

Using autorun, you can set a program to start up automatically when you connect the drive to a computer. You can also use the same script for a data CD-ROM. Note that some computers have autorun disabled for security purposes. [Here's how to disable autorun.]

Open up notepad and paste the following script:

[autorun]

ShellExecute=filename

Label=description

UseAutoPlay=1

Make sure you replace filename with the full path to the file. For example, a file called program.exe in a folder called “programs” on the thumb drive would be /programs/program.exe

Replace description with a short description of the program, for example, My Jukebox or Mozilla Firefox.

Save the file as autorun.inf, making sure you select “All Programs” from the save menu, not “Text document”!

Help! I’m lost!

Ever lost a USB drive? Even if you haven’t, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll lose a few during your life. And with all the important information on it, it could be a disaster to have it fall into someone’s hands.

A good idea is to encrypt all the information on the drive, but you would still want it back, wouldn’t you? Luckily, the folks at the Daily Cup Of Tech have come up with a solution.

Save a program called “Help! I’m Lost!” on the drive, that a finder just can’t get around opening. The program opens a message box with your personal “I’m lost” message. It’s a good idea to offer the finder a bigger reward than the drive itself, so that they’ll be interested in contacting you.

Hide the drive inside something

Why not surprise your friends and co-workers by sticking something that looks like a broken USB cable into the computer’s USB drive?

You’ll be sure to get a few shocked faces when you start to play a movie from it.

The guys from Technobuzz.net show us how to do it. (You are gonna need an unbelievably small thumb drive for this…)

Secure your PC

Just like with an RFID badge, you can use a USB drive to lock and unlock a PC. Insert it to begin working and pull it out when you’ve finished, locking the computer. There are several programs for this . Rohos, a commercial program and WiKID, a semi-open source one.

If you really need to secure your computer with a USB drive, I suggest you give Rohos a try, as WiKID is rather complicated.

Portable jukebox

Don’t just carry the music with you, also carry the player! You can install audio programs such as WinAmp and CoolPlayer+ on your thumb drive. Just unextract the ZIP folders to the USB drive.

If you want the jukebox to start up automatically when you connect the memory stick to the computer, use the autorun feature shown tip 3 and point it to the exe of your audio player.

Encrypt your data

If you carry any sensitive indormation on your USB memory stick, a good idea is to encrypt it. Hardware-level encryption will help, but it will cost extra. You can get a free program to encrypt your data just as securely. For this I recommend TrueCrypt, but most others will also do.

You will need admin access on the computer you want to use your encrypted thumb drive on, so this it’s usability a little.

Run a standalone OS for dedicated tasks

The easiest OS to boot from a USB drive is probably Linux. There are many small capacity Linux versions out there that will fit on your drive. The best 3 are Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux and Webconverger.

Make sure you select a version that needs less space than your USB drive’s maximum, so you have room for files and software.

And this leads us nicely to the final tip…

Run Windows itself from a USB thumb drive
Modifying Windows to work on a USB drive is quite difficult, but luckily there are some tools that will do it for us. Note that you will need a separate Windows license for this, as Microsoft only lets you use one for each single computer, and a USB drive is treated by them like a computer…

What you’ll need:

  1. A licensed copy of Windows
  2. A USB device, min. 1GB (We recommend a USB hard disk, as a flash memory stick will become unusable after 100000 writing processes. Assuming that only 2 processes are used per second, the drive will last only 60 days with 8 hours of work each day… A hard disk doesn’t have this problem.)

Here is the link to the full tutorial, translated from German.

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28 Comments »

  • techniqueal t. said:

    fantastic tips! certainly “digg”-able ^_^

    i like your site. had it added in my TECH BLOGS sidebar section. care to exchange links?

    # 27 October 2008 at 12:41 pm
  • John D said:

    I love tip number five. Hiding the drive inside something conspicuous should also provide better security. Looking forward to the next 5. John

    # 29 October 2008 at 6:43 am
  • Eerik said:

    Yeah sure, techniqueal, what would you like for the anchor text?

    # 29 October 2008 at 9:50 am
  • techniqueal t. said:

    that’s wonderful! either The Technical Thought Of You or Technicaldotcom would be great. Thanks! ^_^

    Tip Number 5 is pretty neat trick. Love all the tips especially number 9. ^_^

    # 30 October 2008 at 1:39 am
  • Eerik said:

    Done!

    # 30 October 2008 at 8:52 am
  • technomedic said:

    Hi, thanx for the detailed tutorial, I want to add here for all readers that I use another portable apps program suite called Win Pen Pack, which has a very useful and huge collection of open source free softwares of all categories including Multimedia, Security, System tools etc. Try it..download from wwww.winpenpack.com

    # 11 November 2008 at 1:06 pm
  • technomedic said:

    Hi, care for link exchange??? plz reply….thanx

    # 12 November 2008 at 3:42 pm
  • Computer Resources said:

    I love all Tips.. Because the all are very useful and cool..mostly I like Tip no 3 and 9. What i wanna say you is I use another portable apps program suite called Win Pen Pack, which has a very useful and huge collection of open source free softwares of all categories including Multimedia, Security, System tools etc.

    # 18 November 2008 at 11:18 pm
  • Dur said:

    The Next mod I wanna see like that broken usb cable is One of these turned into a portable hd lol. Awesome article! I like the creativity of some of these.

    # 13 December 2008 at 12:34 am
  • Dur said:

    http://overclockershq.com/gadget-reviews/coolit-usb-beverage-cooler-review.html
    ^these sorry didn’t realize html was turned off

    # 13 December 2008 at 12:35 am
  • Report Scam said:

    i got this post from google

    thank for tip

    # 9 January 2009 at 1:11 pm
  • Debasis said:

    Hey you have got a great sites here buddy. Adding you to my bookmarks. Need to dig down your old tips too.

    # 23 January 2009 at 3:48 pm
  • khaled @ number plate registration said:

    USB storage devises are great but be warned they do lose data from time to time. When I was working offshore we cut all the final reports from the rigs PC and transferred them to the USB devise. When we tried to copy them onto our laptop for burning to disk all the reports become corrupted. It was lucky we printed them off first otherwise It would have been 3 weeks worth of work down the drain. The ideas are great but make sure it its important you have a disk / hardisk backup.

    # 7 February 2009 at 8:59 pm
  • miho said:

    Manue: 1GB is cavernous for text files, but not so much for media files. It completely depends on what you’re transporting.

    I find that USB keys live a hard life, and you’ll be much better off NOT depending on them as a primary backup medium for important files. In other words, don’t expect them to survive indefinitely. In my experience, they can fail after 2 weeks (of living in my pocket), or not fail after 1.5 years of daily use, makes no difference, it seems.

    It is very useful to have more than one. I have a 256MB “throwaway” that I use like a floppy to give files to people. I eventually get it back, but I dont’ really care how long they keep it…I’ve probably got a half-dozen keys out there somewhere.

    # 10 February 2009 at 2:27 pm
  • Nick Owen said:

    WiKID is not a system to secure access to a PC using a USB drive. It is a two-factor authentication system typically used for network-based authentication for VPNs, websites, etc – services that require something stronger than a static password. You can run our software token on a USB drive, whihc might be the cause of the confusion. More info here:http://www.wikidsystems.com

    # 23 February 2009 at 10:21 pm
  • Track it Software said:

    thanks for the tip. on windows 7 a USB drive can encrypted using bitlocker for greater security too.

    I have tested bitlocker on my computer, and honestly, it does not work that good. hopefully on the final release works better.

    thank you for the tip.

    # 2 March 2009 at 2:45 am
  • cathy said:

    Commendable ten tips really, worth bookmarking them for sure.

    # 5 March 2009 at 2:49 pm
  • Mike - Online Music Store said:

    I never even thought about running operating system on a thumb drive. This is neat, I should give this a try.

    # 1 June 2009 at 7:02 pm
  • arka said:

    thanks for your information

    # 7 June 2009 at 9:18 pm
  • Dinoo said:

    Can any one tell me if there is a way to password protect my USB drive without using a software.If so how can you do it.I’ve been looking through this matter 4 a long time

    # 11 June 2009 at 12:51 pm
  • Stephen Roy said:

    Awesome. I never though to do private browsing with a Thumb Drive, but that’s all going away now with firefox 3.5. YAY, it’s now officially the last browser to get it.

    # 18 June 2009 at 4:51 pm
  • Matty @ New Home Builder said:

    Seriously? You can do all that with a usb drive? Wow! How big are the latest and greatest thumb drives? 8GB?

    # 18 June 2009 at 11:24 pm
  • Sheehan said:

    Hello. I was the kid next door’s imaginary friend.
    I am from Britain and also am speaking English, give true I wrote the following sentence: “Order prescription medications for migraine headaches.”

    Thanks ;-) . Sheehan.

    # 20 June 2009 at 7:48 am
  • umair said:

    WTS DIS??????????????????

    # 20 June 2009 at 1:18 pm
  • David Stock said:

    Hey mate nice post, actually a post which will be helpful for each and ever one.Such tips are a need each and every individual, as we use USB daily.

    # 20 June 2009 at 2:50 pm
  • Rachael said:

    I need more info! I need to know how to put a file on the USB and make it so someone can’t delete it. I want the user to be able to access the file, but not be able to get rid of the file.
    I tried read only. It didn’t work.

    # 2 July 2009 at 9:50 pm
  • Wonderland said:

    Vow, i like this post. This is almost fantastic. What a U S B >>>

    # 3 July 2009 at 5:16 pm
  • jewel said:

    I really like those tips and tricks. I never thought that I can install and use a web browser from my thumb drive. And the encryption and “I’m Lost” program are great ideas.

    # 3 September 2009 at 4:18 pm

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