Future of USB, USB 3.0 looks promising

USB has been very significant invention in computer industry.It has changed a lot about devices connect to each other or to computer.This time we are talking about USB 3.0, which is expected to be in our hands only by early 2010. USB 2.0 has a theoretical maximum speed of 480Mbps and can provide power. USB 3.0 cable is thicker than the USB 2.0 cable as it contains six wires rather than two. In this post you will find basic details about what you have to know about USO 3.0.

By the time we get the device in our hands we would have waited almost 10 years. According to the USB implementers forum there were 2 billion USB 2.0 devices shipped in 2006 (one for every three people in the world), and the install base was 6 billion (almost one for every person in the world).

USB 3.0 specs suggest a maximum speeed of 5Gbps, 10 times faster than USB 2.0. The new version of USB is also capable to work in full duplex mode, full duplex is - it can upload and download simultaneously. [USB 2.0 is only half duplex]

USB 3.0 features an intelegent power management system. It could detect a device is not in working state and can reduce the amount of power it will send to the device. This directly increases the battery life. A welcome move for Laptop users.

USB 3.0’s new architecture will still use more CPU time ? I really dont have an answer to it.

Now come the problem, we have to wait long for Hardware manufacturers to build this into the system for us to use it. Thats not an easy move. [USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are not compatible devices, you need new hardware]

On a pesonal note I have never seen USB 2.0 deliver the speed it has promised. So I really dont know how much to rely on the claims made about USB 3.0

Having said all this here is the comparison about the speeds of different USB’s

Transfer of a 25GB HD movie:

* USB 1.0 - 9.3 hours
* USB 2.0 - 13.9 minutes
* USB 3.0 - 70 seconds

USB 3.0 is expected to hit the market only by 2010. So when will our device makers start using the same in their hardwares ? My best guess would be by 2012 and not all makes will direcly adopt to USB 3.0 so fast.

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How to found your lost USB pen drive

Now a days USB pen drives are becoming very popular but the disadvantage with them is their frequency of getting lost.I myself had lost my 2 Kingston pen drives.But now you can prevent yours from getting lost by using a free utility called USB Lost and Found which can be used on Windows 2000/XP/Server/Vista.


USB Lost and Found is a free tool to setup your USB drive to keep unauthorized users from keeping your USB drive if it were to be lost. USB Lost and Found has a method of Message which when the user tries to use your USB drive it comes up with a message box that tells them to return it, along with your contact information, and denies access to the USB drive. This could be useful if the USB was missed from you and someone gets it, he/she can contact you to get it back to you.

Its free version has limited protection because it provides protection by only one method while pro has more than one.The PRO version which comes for $3.49 has another method called lock down.Lock Down immediately locks the user’s computer when the USB drive is accessed, covering the whole screen and denying access. When the computer is in lockdown mode, hotkeys such as Alt+F4 and Ctrl+Shift+Esc don’t work. Only Ctrl+Alt+Del would work and you can shutdown/restart/logoff your computer.

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How to remove virus,spyware from USB drive

If you want to remove viruses and spywares from your USB drive then first take a look how they affect your system.Most common viruses such as ’Ravmon’ , ‘New Folder.exe’, ‘Orkut is banned’ etc are spreading through USB drives. Most anti virus programs are unable to detect them and even if they do, in most cases they are unable to delete the file, only quarantine it. Here are the things which you can do if you want to remove such viruses from your USB drives but first you must learn how to keep your USB drive safe when attached to virus infected computer system ? This will reduce the chances of getting virus infected again and again.

Whenever you plug a USB drive in your system, a window will appear, this is because of autorun. For stopping autorun press shift key after plug in your USB drive.If autorun windows opens then don’t click on Ok , just choose ‘Cancel’. Open the Command Prompt by typing ‘cmd‘ in the run box. In the command prompt type the drive letter: and press enter . Now type dir /w/a and press enter.

This will display a list of the files in the pen drive. Check whether the following files are there or not

* Autorun.inf
* Ravmon.exe
* Bha.vbs
* Iexplore.vbs
* New Folder.exe
* svchost.exe
* Heap41a
* Info.exe
* or any other exe file which may be suspicious.

If any of the above files are there, then probably the USB drive is infected. In command prompt type attrib -r -a -s -h *.* and press enter. This will remove the Read Only, Archive, System and hidden file attribute from all the files. Now just delete the files using the command del filename. example del Ravmon.exe. Delete all the files that are suspicious. To be on a safer side, just scan the USB drive with an anti virus program to check whether it is free of virus or not. Now remove the drive and plug it again. In most of the cases, the real culprit turns out to be the “Autorun.inf” file which mostly gets executed when someone clicks Ok in the dialog window which appears above. Thus the infections can spread.

You can also disable your system USB if you believe that other user is infecting your system from their USB drive.To prevent this you can also keep track of all the USB attached to your system.

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Protect your USB drive content by Lockngo

If your pen drive or USB drive is containing some kind of important or classified data and you are worried that some one else could see that data if your USB drive is handed to your friend or some one with which this USB drive is shared.Well this is very obvious in this case the most important thing you will wish to some how hide that data on that USB drive.

Now you can protect your USB drive data by locking and hiding it on the USB drive by using a small utility lockngo.Lockngo is a removable media protection software.You can download the demo version of Lockngo which lets you hide files on your removable drive for free but you cannot set the password protection over your files on your portable drive in the free version of Lockngo.

Lockngo handles the data that is stored in the removable media in a way that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to retrieve even by using hacker’s low level raw reading utilities,it is that simple.

This software works for almost all the pendrives, memory cards and all other portable devices which lets you store the data.

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How to keep USB drive safe when attached to virus infected computer system

I have faced this situation many many times.When i have to use my pen drive,which is already containing some important data that i can't afford to loose, on a shared computer system that is probably infected with viruses, i always found myself in a dilemma.If i use my USB drive on that virus infected computer system then that virus will be automatically transmitted to my pen drive also and then it might make my pen drive unreadable or data on pen drive might be lost etc. depending upon the virus activity.

But now i have found a solution for this situation.If i make my USB drive non writable then any kind of data can't be written to it,means if virus infected computer is going to transmit any virus to pen drive then it can't be written to it as USB drive is write protected.

ThumbScrew is a freeware that can be used to write-protect your USB drive so that malware or any kind of unwanted program or data from host computer doesn’t spread to your USB Drive. For using it download and launch the app, right click the System Tray icon and choose ‘Make USB Read Only’. Now nothing could be written to the USB Drive, you’re completely protected from infections spreading to your disk from your computer.

Now your pen drive is protected on that shared system but i still recommend you to use a quality anitvirus software updated regularly as your system contains more important data than a pen drive.

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Keep record of USB devices attached to your system by a freeware

Normally computer users are not interested in keeping the record of USB devices attached to their computer systems but if are a administrator of computer systems shared among family members,cyber cafe users ,employees,students etc. then it might be usefull for you to keep record of all the USB devices attached to your system.Since windows xp,vista or any operating system does not provide any such facility for keeping record of any USB devices attached to your computer system so there is no setting tweak for this.You have to use a freeware USBDeview for keeping record of USB devices.

USBDeview allows you to easily see which USB devices have been attached to your PC along with keeping a history of all the devices that have been attached in the past. This can be pretty useful if you want to keep track of any devices you may add to your PC over time.For each USB device, extended information is displayed: Device name/description, device type, serial number (for mass storage devices), the date/time that device was added, VendorID, ProductID, and more.

USBDeview doesn't require any installation process or additional DLL files. Just copy the executable file (USBDeview.exe) to any folder you like, and run it.

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Use your pendrive as RAM in windows xp

Windows vista provides this feature called rambooster to use your pen drive as RAM but windows xp lacks this feature.But now even windows XP users can use this feature by the use of ebooster.



Though it requires USB 2.0 for its working and look what they says about filesystem.

There is no difference in speed between FAT32 and NTFS formatted drives. If your thumb drive is less or equal to 4GB we recommend using FAT32. Use NTFS if you want the cache file sized more than 4GB (make sure that the drive has a good write speed, otherwise disable the “write-cache” option for this drive to prevent “Windows Delayed Write Failed” errors).

Overall this is good utility for the windows xp users who wants to increase their RAM by using their thumb drives.

[Download ebooster]

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Format a USB drive in NTFS file system

When we format our pendrive then file system is by default FAT or FAT32. Windows automatically select FAT file system to format a pen drive and doesn't provide the option to format the pendrive in NTFS file system but you can easily format your pendrive in NTFS file system by following tweaks.

1.Plug in your pendive and right click on the my computer icon on the desktop and select manage
2.Now computer management window will open now select device manager
3.In device manager you will find your pendrive under disk drives (expand disk drive ) , go to pendrive properties by right clicking on it.
4.Now move to policies tab and select the second option "optimize for performance " and click ok



5.Now when you will format your pendrive by right clicking on it, then you will find NTFS, FAT32 and FAT under the file system.Select the NTFS to format your pendrive in NTFS format.

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Pen drive Office of just 2.5 Mb

You have many options of using Office application in Pen drive like Mojo pack etc .They usually take lot of space in your tiny space i.e in your pen drive .Now you have a awesome option Tiny USB Office.

2.5 Mb of space and you’ve got yourself a suite of office applications which are capable of doing almost everything which you expect from an office suite. It is a suite of 15-16 applications which take care of the database creation, data encryption, email client, file compression, file sharing, chat, pdf creation, password recovery, word processing, spreadsheet creation and few more things and that too in just 2.5 Mb of size.


Tiny USB Office features all of these programs, which are accessible with one click with the included Qsel portable program launcher software:

* Database Creation - with CSVed
* Data Encryption - with DScrypt
* Email Client Software - with NPopUK
* File Compression - with 100 Zipper
* File Sharing - with HFS
* File Transfer - with FTP Wanderer
* Flowchart Creation - with EVE Vector Editor
* MSN Messenger Client - with PixaMSN
* Tree-Style Outliner Software - with Mempad
* PDF Creation - with PDF Producer
* Password Recovery - with XPass
* Secure Deletion - with DSdel
* Spreadsheet Creation - with Spread32
* Text Editing - with TedNotepad
* Word Processing - with Kpad
* Program Launching - with Qsel


Well this is awesome for a 2.5Mb application.

Download [Tiny Office pack]

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Know the version of USB in your system

If you want to figure out the version of USB in your system then there are two widely known ways of figuring out the USB version standard available on your PC. Well some of you might not be convinced that why should they search for this kind of stuff.So for these people only do you have ever seen a message like "this USB device can perform faster if you connect it to a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port ..." .

This is because of the different versions of the USB,version 1.0 and version 2.0 (ver 3.0 in process) both have different data transfer rates along with some other differences.Main thing is data transfer rates which is 1.5 Mbit/s (Low-Speed) and 12 Mbit/s (Full-Speed)for USB 1.0 and 480 Mbit/s (now called Hi-Speed) for USB 2.0.

So to figure out the version of USB,One of the most commonly used way is to figure it out using the MSInfo32 exe. In order to launch this exe, follow the below mentioned steps

1. Click Start->Run
2. Type in MSInfo32.exe at the input box.
3. Browse to the USB Section and you should see two USB 2.0 Root Hub Entries, if your system includes the faster version.


Alternatively, you could figure this out using Control Panel as well.

1. Launch Device Manager using the Control Panel (Control Panel -> System-> Hardware)
2. Expand USB Section.


3. If you have an ‘Enhanced’ USB host controller listed then your system supports USB 2.0. Just one or two ‘Enhanced’ controllers means your computer system is using USB 2.0

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Do you know what your pen drive can do other than transferring data?

1. Mini Operating systems Yeah!! You can carry a portable operating system on your pen drive which will help you log into any PC with your own password and fix the crashes. There is a long list of available options though it will invariably be a flavor of Linux. To make your job easier I would recommend a visit to pendrivelinux.com and here.

2. Virtual Machine You can turn your pen drive into a virtual PC by installing portable virtualization softwares like Mojopac. It will help you carry your files and softwares with ease.

3. Security on the move There are a host of security related applications that can fit in your pen drive and thus travel with you. Thus your data will always be secured whether or not the host PC has an anti-virus or spam guard. Avast Virus Cleaner, ClamWin, and McAfee Avert Stinger are some of my recommendations.

4. Portable Applications Virtually every software today has a portable counterpart. Right from web development to design to messengers to games, there is nothing that is not available in the portable form. You can stuff some of these in your pen drive and work on the move without actually having to carry your laptop everywhere. One can get a whole list of such applications and details on pendriveapps.com or portableapps.com.

5. Value addition There are certain applications which if installed on the pen drive can help it serve you better. These are thus value addition softwares. Pendrive.com lists a few of them here while Snapfiles offers these. For data recovery from a pen drive, one can go for applications like Pro data Doctor or Memory stick data Recovery or Restoration.

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How to enable disable USB in your computer

Now a days there are certain type of viruses and spywares that are spreading from pendrives just because of the unprotected use of Pen drives because usually user does not scan the pen drive before its use by the updates anti virus softwares.This situation got worse on shared computers.So some of the administrates block the USB ports so that system does not get infected by this way.You can also disable and re-enable your system's USB ports by a simple trick.

How to disable USB storage access for a certain group of users this disabling and re-enabling of USB ports is based on a simple registry entry.By following these simple steps anyone can disable and re-enable the access of USB ports.

To disable the access to USB port, in windows XP and 2000
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
4. In the right pane, double-click Start.
5. In the Value data box, type 4, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.
6. Quit Registry Editor.

To re-enable a disabled port:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UsbStor
4. In the right pane, double-click Start.
5. In the Value data box, type 3, click Hexadecimal (if it is not already selected), and then click OK.
6. Quit Registry Editor.

Related:
How to allow user to format pen drive in windows

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How to allow user to format pen drive in windows

Whenever you are working on a shared computer in college or office then there are chances that only administrators are allowed to format and eject removable hard disks in Windows XP which could become a problem if you normally use a normal user account in Windows to increase system security or have to work on a system where you only have user access rights.

A Registry key controls which users may format or eject removable hard disks in Windows. The key can be changed by administrators to give additional user groups the right to format or eject the hard drives.

Open the Registry by pressing Windows R, typing regedit and hitting enter. Navigate to the Registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon and look for the string allocatedasd. The default value is 0 which means that only administrators may format or eject removable hard disks. If you want to change this you can set it to 1 to give the right to Power Users or to 2 to give the right to normal users as well.

Dasd sounds like a random string but it actually means Direct Access Storage Device. If you use Windows XP Professional you can also start gpedit.msc instead and navigate through Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options and double-click the entry Devices: Allowed to format and eject removable media and change the setting from Administrators to the one that suits your needs.

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