USB memory cards

[Newbie]

I recently bought a usb memory card for $20.00 from best buy, but when I pug it into my desk top I dont know how to save files to it, how do I do that?

[wrigley]

Which operating system do you have? Windows 95/98/2000/XP, Mac or Linux?

With windows 98/2000/XP and Mac all you have to do is plug it in and the driver should either autoinstall, or at least prompt you to install the driver. Once the driver is installed, for windows the USB-key will appear as a new drive in the My Computer, for Mac the USB-key will appear as a new drive on the desktop.

[Spyderbyte]

Windows 2000 and XP will automatically recognize the card and label it Removable Disk (Drive Letter) in My Computer. If you have Windows 98 or lower, you'll need to get a driver. Just search google for "(Memory card name) driver," and you should be able to find it. Install the driver, then plug in your memory card, and you should be ready to go!

Hope this helps!

Spyderbyte

[Newbie]

Im trying to use it on a library computer to get the 810 chipset drive I need to get my graphics to the way the were on my computer so I can install the internet, but the problem is is that the computer is not picking up the card and I'm pretty sure its running on Windows NT. Also its on a network.

[Tyler]

One problem: Windows NT doesn't support Windows NT
(Unless you have add-on drivers that they might have gotten rid of)

[wrigley]

You should get a bunch of floppies instead, then get a Filesplitter download this to one of the floppies, and use it to split your drivers up into many smaller files, that will fit on the floppies. When you have the all your split files on floppies, go home and use the program on the first floppy to unsplit them.

Unfortunately the chances are extreemely low, that you will be allowed/able to install drivers on the library computers.

Alternatively you might be able to borrow a friends computer, and he may allow you to install the drivers for your USB-key. If you pick a friend with WinXP, it should auto install the drivers, and you won't have to worry him about installing anything on his computer, simply ask him if you may borrow his internet connection to download your missing drivers.


btw. have you checked that your USB-key works with your Win98? because if it doesn't, going to a friends house woulnd't be much help

[NETWizz]

[NETWizz]

I have the 810 Chipset driver. I will post it here sometime around Monday.

It is on a computer at work.

[Newbie]

How do I seperate all the files onto seperate floppies? I downloaded the file but it will not allow me to open it at the library or am I suppose to do it on my own computer before I go to the library to try to download the driver?

[NETWizz]

If you are going to split filies, be sure to format all the floppy disks and run a full sandisk /chkdsk on all of them including bad sectors. I serriously have seen at least 5 or 6 bad floppies in my time where people loose data. It is very common.

You should check all your floppies and discard any of them if they have a 1 or more bad sector.

As for filesplitter, it should work, but FYI WinZip will work too. It will even compress the file so you need fewer floppies. I would still recomend you use a Memory Stick or CD rather than a handful of floppies though.

[Arcane Wizard]

[leofox]

yes, i've had that too. Floppies always break, especially the cheap ones.

[wrigley]

The trick with floppies is:
NEVER use ScanDisk (the program will at times actually create bad sectors)
NEVER eject the floppy before the green LED next to it goes off.
when formatting NEVER use QuickFormat
Never delete a file on a floppy, if the file is on a bad sector (take advantage of the fact that the file is covering the bad sector so other files won't be placed there and stop working)
NEVER bend them (looking at leofox )
make several copies of every file on the floppy.
Pray you have an inviolent floppydrive.

If you stik to these rules, you should be fine!


when getting the filesplitter, you must download the one without Installer/uninstaller!
Unzip and open the filesplitter at the library computer.
Then simply browse to the location of the driver using the top "Browse" button, and browse to some directory you have write acces to, using the bottom "Browse" button.

choose custom size, and enter a size of about 50 KB
then click the split button.

when you are done, simply copy the files to floppies.

All done?? Good! now take out the last floppy, and double click on the floppydrive icon, windows will complain about the fact that there is no floppy in the drive.*
Click Cancel.
Now put in the first floppy and try to copy its contents to the harddrive of the library computer one or two files at a time.
Note which files won't copy.
Go through all your floppies like this.

when done you will have a list of files that didn't work,
you should now copy these files from the original directory to the last floppy.
take it out, double click the floppy icon, click cancel, copy the newly copied files to harddrive, as you have just done with the other floppies.
repeat this untill you have a working copy of all files.

now go home with all your floppies I assume 3/4 should be enough if the driver you need to take home is around 3-4MB

copy all your files to one directory and execute the Create_YourDriverName.exe

[leofox]

[NETWizz]

I disagree with the NEVER use ScanDisk or ChkDsk.

If you are smart, you will run ScanDisk or ChkDsk after you do a full format on a floppy.

Here is why: ScanDisk or Chkdsk will run a complete sector by sector check of each sector on the floppy. This envolves reading the data that is there determining exactly what data is there and storeing it in memory. Writing all zeros and reading it back to verify all zeros are written. writing all ones and reading it back, writing all zeros again and reading it back... Finally, it writes the data back to the disk.

Obviously, if you have important data on the floppy already, do not use chkdsk or scandisk to do a full bad sector recovry/check because it will thrash the hell out of your data and only put it back correctly if the floppy is undamanged!

However, with a clean formatted disk, you have nothing to loose. Run the full scandisk/checkdisk on your disks. It will immediatly let you know if you have any bad areas on the disk and mark them as bad. If you have any bad areas, discard the disk. If not, you have over 99.9% chance of not having problems with that disk for a period of time.

[wrigley]

Jbirk, have you ever tried running a ScanDisk twice on the same floppy?

with most floppy drives (I have tried) this is what happens:

Format
check with scandisk
0 bad sectors //this one might not ever occur it varies
check with scandisk
3 bad sectors
check with scandisk
25 bad sectors
check with scandisk
67 bad sectors
check with scandisk
189 bad sectors
check with scandisk
357 bad sectors
check with scandisk
523 bad sectors
check with scandisk
1,434 bad sectors
...
you get the picture, so I say NEVER EVER use scandisk on floppies.

note: I have tested this on more than one computer

[Arcane Wizard]

Wow, you can actually format your floppys?

[wrigley]

sorry ... I didn't catch that ... what does being able to format floppies have to do with bad sectors and scandisk?

did I write something grammatically incorect?

[Arcane Wizard]

I'm suprised your floppys are in such a good condition that you can actually format them.

[wrigley]

why?