Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Aaron: I received a USB thumb drive in the mail. It was addressed to me but there was no return address.
Inside the envelope with the drive was a note saying the drive had a picture of my girlfriend with another guy.
I want to know who the guy is but I can’t open the JPEG file. When I click on it the screen just goes blank and I have to unplug the computer and restart it.
What am I doing wrong? [Read more…]
Question from Julie: I have a 64GB USB flash drive that I use to transfer files back and forth between my work computer and my home computer.
Both of these computers have Windows 10 on them.
I’ve been using this flash drive every day for about two years with no problems at all.
Starting last week every time I insert the drive into either computer I get a message saying the drive has a problem and needs to be scanned and fixed.
I’ve clicked the button to scan drive and fix the drive several times but I always get the same message the next time I plug it into a computer.
Is there any way to fix this problem or do I need to just replace the drive? I really like this one because it’s small and it attaches to my key ring.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
With USB Flash Drives getting bigger and faster all the time, USB 3.0 flash drives in the 16GB-64GB range are quite common now, and inexpensive as well.
Although you can purchase flash drives that rival the storage space of a small hard drive these days, the sweet spot in price vs. capacity and performance seems to be with 128GB models.
I recently received a Corsair Flash Voyager Slider X1 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive (#ad) for review, and as with most Corsair products I was quite impressed with it overall.
[Read more…]
Question from Karren: I have a Verbatim 16GB USB flash drive that works fine with my laptop, but when I plug it into my desktop computer it displays the following error message:
“Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems.(Code 43)”
Does this mean there’s a problem with my computer or with the flash drive? And how can I fix it? My laptop is running Windows Vista and the desktop is running Windows 7.
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
USB flash drives have made the process of transferring files between one PC and another the easiest that it has ever been. Simply plug the drive into one PC, copy the desired files to it, then plug it into the 2nd PC and copy the files to the hard drive. It’s a fast and easy process.
But this convenience comes at a high potential cost. Plug a thumb drive into a computer that’s infected with a virus and that virus can hitch a free ride right onto your own PC’s hard drive. [Read more…]