USB flash devices such as pen drives are an essential and most common way to carry along the data on the go. This could include your private and confidential files that you might want to secure to prevent them from unauthorized access, in case you lose the pen drive or someone at your workplace analyzes it while you’re away. Fortunately, such activity can be simply prevented by locking the flash drive using USB Safeguard.

USB Safeguard is a free, smart and effective tool to encrypt and protect data with a
password on your removable pen drive using the AES 256 bits encryption. It is a portable program offering novice and expert users the ability to easily password protect the pen drive, thus to protect the valuable data stored on flash drive and prevent data theft. It sets a password for the entire pendrive and not just for a certain file or folder. Once the drive is locked, one cannot read nor write any data to it without the correct password. Supports FAT16, FAT32 & NTFS file system, requires no installation.

How to Password Protect a Pen Drive – Download USB Safeguard, then copy the file "usbsafeguard.exe" to the root of your pen drive and run it. Agree to the software license agreement, Set your password and press Lock button to lock the pen drive. To unlock, launch the program from pen drive. Input the password and hit Unlock to access the entire data stored on the drive. You can click on help icon (?) to set your contact details (email or phone) in case you loose the pen drive.

Note: The free version works only with USB Flash drive of size max 2 GB. This seems fine as the tool is really very nifty and useful.

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USBFlashCopy is a small and portable utility for Windows which allows users to easily backup their flash drives and storage cards on the fly. It automatically detects when you insert a media and copies its content to your PC. It shows options when a new media is found like: create a new profile or use default profile, never backup this media.

You can Create profiles with separate settings for different USB flash devices or memory cards. You can also change default settings. USBFlashCopy keeps its settings in an INI file and copies only newer or updated files, you can optionally keep old versions of files. It may also backup the external storage of your Android phones and other mobiles.

It is free to use in ‘Basic mode’ while the Silent mode costs $39.95, which just unlocks the feature to hide the progress bar shown in corner while backing up the data.

Supports: All Windows OS

Download USBFlashCopy  (240 KB)

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Recently, I got a Samsung netbook which came just with DOS. So, I’m here to share the working method as ‘How to Install Windows 7 on netbook via bootable USB pen drive’. The below procedure has been tried on Samsung N148 Plus Netbook (NP-N148-DP03IN). This guide may also work for other Samsung netbooks and netbooks from other brands.

To Install Windows 7 on Netbook, you first need to create a Bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7 because there is no DVD drive in netbooks. Follow our guide to make a bootable Windows 7 flash drive, easily using ‘Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool’.

After successfully creating a bootable media, follow the below steps carefully:

1. Plug-in the flash drive to netbook and make sure the netbook is charged.

2. Power On the netbook and Press the F2 key as you see ‘Samsung logo’ on screen.

3. You’ll now be entered into BIOS of netbook. Open the ‘Boot’ options and then open ‘Boot Device Priority’ using Enter.

4. Using the F5/F6 keys, move the “USB HDD” device to 1st position as shown below. Use F10 to save the Bios settings.

This is all done to let the netbook boot from USB flash drive.

On restarting, netbook will boot via USB drive and Windows 7 Installation screen will appear. Install the Windows 7 edition (Starter, Home Basic or Home Premium edition are recommended).

Note this point – There are mere 5 steps which are processed automatically when installing Windows 7. In netbook, you have to change the 1st boot device back to netbook’s HDD after it restarts on completion of 4th step i.e. Installing updates

What to do when Netbook restarts after completion of 4th step (Installing updates) -

Using the above steps, move back the ‘AHCI HDD’ to 1st position under the boot device priority in BIOS. On restarting, the ‘Install Windows’ box will appear and 5th step i.e. Completing installation will continue to run. Be patient and let the process to complete!

On completing the final step, Windows will ask to enter a username and PC name. That’s it, you’ve successfully installed Windows 7 on your netbook.

Install the Drivers, software and Updates in Netbook – After Windows is installed, it’s time to install the drivers and software. Samsung provides a DVD with “System Software Media” that lets you install the device drivers and software, all unattended.

You can copy the full content of Samsung DVD to a USB drive using a PC. Then, open the SoftwareMedia.exe file to install the device software on netbook without DVD.

Hope you found this guide useful. Do post your comments. Related Posts:

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Yesterday, Opera 10.50 final was released which is claimed to be the fastest browser on Earth by Opera. The official portable version of Opera 10.50 is now available from Opera@USB, which you carry along on flash drives or pen drives at your work place.

The download files are available as .zip and .exe in International, German and English. Users can can update from 10.x to 10.50, by extracting the update zip file directly into the Opera@USB or Opera@U3 folder and overwrite the (old) files.

Download Here

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The use of USB devices & Pendrives in our daily life, has given rise to dangerous threats like virus, worms, trojans, malware, etc. which spread from an infected PC to other systems when a flash drive is plugged into them.

Mx One is a free antivirus designed to protect the removable storage devices like USB sticks, iPod, mp3, mp4, memory cards and many more devices in an efficient way. You can either install it on Windows or on your USB device. The application has a cool user interface and is easy to install and configure.

Download Here  [Supports Multi Languages]

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Yesterday, Firefox 3.6 Final was officially released with many new features and improvements. A portable version of Firefox 3.6 is now available from PortableApps, which allows you to use it anywhere directly from a USB Flash/Pen drive.

The PortableApps.com launcher bundled in the Mozilla Firefox lets you easily install Firefox on your USB device. Also, Portable Edition leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can take your favorite browser along with all your favorite bookmarks and extensions with you wherever you go.

Download Firefox 3.6 Portable Edition (9 MB download/30MB installed)Related Posts:

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Hidden Files Viewer is a small and portable tool which can show you hidden and dangerous files residing inside your Pen drives. This tool is intended for users visiting frequently to Internet cafes and have their thumb/flash drives riddled with viruses.

This is mainly for installation on any USB drive but can also be run from the computer.

You can view the hidden files, unhide or delete them. It has the ability to close the current browser and keeps a permanent watch on USB drives for the arrival of the inevitable hidden viruses. Can be used on Windows Vista and 7.

Download Hidden Files Viewer

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PortableApps.com, the biggest creator of portable apps has now released portable version of 3 major and most used softwares. Now you can carry these apps around with you on a portable device like USB flash drive.

1) uTorrent Portable – µTorrent is the world’s most popular BitTorrent client. Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet).

2) Skype Portable 4.1 – Skype lets you connect to others via instant message, audio conferencing and video phone. It can also call regular phone lines from anywhere in the world. It’s released as freeware for personal and business use.

3) Google Chrome Portable 3.0.195.27 Revision 2 – Chrome is one of the leading and fastest browser till date that runs web pages and applications with lightning speed. It’s designed to be simple and stylish. This new release fixes some issues with theme portability and bookmark loss.

Note – All the above apps are packaged as a portable app and can be easily integrated with the PortableApps.com Suite.

Hope you find the above listed portable apps useful for work.

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