USB stick became unusable

Wintoflash Support team

Try WinToFlash Erase option in Advanced mode. 

If it won't work (or WinToFlash will not be able to Erase the drive) 

use  WinHEX:  open the media (your USB drive)

Tools - open disk - Edit - Fill disk sectors

Fill first ~1000 sectors with 0, replug the USB and try to format it again with Windows.

=========================

Overview to WinToFlash.
Quickly and simply install the program you needs and in no time at all you will find yourself writing essays on Windows and using your USB. The WinToFlash makes the job hassle free for you.

WinToFlash is software for transfer your Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7, Windows 8 Setup from CD or DVD to USB in some mouse clicks. This is about you can install your Windows from flash drive or card, HDD, etc. to your computer or netbook.
And this is not all it can do. WinToFlash can transfer your live CD or DVD to USB card, for example, BartPE. After all you can erase your USB media and format it with Windows for everyday use.
gnrsu.com/wintoflash.html

WinToFlash is a software for transfer your Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, Windows 2008, Windows 7 setup from CD or DVD to USB in some mouse clicks. This is about you can install your Windows from flash drive, USB pen, HDD, etc to your computer or netbook.
And this is not all it can do. WinToFlash can transfer your live CD or DVD to USB card, for example, BartPE. After all you can erase your USB media and format it with Windows for every day use.

[ Key Features ]

• Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7 to USB transfer
• WinPE to USB transfer
• USB media erasing, full of quick
• Create the USB drive with emergency boot loader
• DOS to USB transfer

 =========================

Download
All languages
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User manual

WinHex is in its core a universal hexadecimal editor, particularly helpful in the realm of computer forensics, data recovery, low-level data processing, and IT security. An advanced tool for everyday and emergency use: inspect and edit all kinds of files, recover deleted files or lost data from hard drives with corrupt file systems or from digital camera cards. Features include, depending on the license type (comparison):

• Disk editor for hard disks, floppy disks, CD-ROM & DVD, ZIP, Smart Media, Compact Flash, ...
• Native support for FAT12/16/32, exFAT, NTFS, Ext2/3/4, Next3®, CDFS, UDF
• Built-in interpretation of RAID systems and dynamic disks
• Various data recovery techniques
• RAM editor, providing access to physical RAM and other processes' virtual memory
• Data interpreter, knowing 20 data types
• Editing data structures using templates (e.g. to repair partition table/boot sector)
• Concatenating and splitting files, unifying and dividing odd and even bytes/words
• Analyzing and comparing files
• Particularly flexible search and replace functions
• Disk cloning (under DOS with X-Ways Replica)
• Drive images & backups (optionally compressed or split into 650 MB archives)
• Programming interface (API) and scripting
• 256-bit AES encryption, checksums, CRC32, hashes (MD5, SHA-1, ...)
• Erase (wipe) confidential files securely, hard drive cleansing to protect your privacy
• Import all clipboard formats, incl. ASCII hex values
• Convert between binary, hex ASCII, Intel Hex, and Motorola S
• Character sets: ANSI ASCII, IBM ASCII, EBCDIC, (Unicode)
• Instant window switching. Printing. Random-number generator.
• Supports files >4 GB. Very fast. Easy to use. Extensive online help. (more)

Having all the bits and bytes in a computer at your fingertips has become a reality. Try before you buy, as long as you need, for free.

UFD, autorun.inf y virus

La propagacion de virus y demás malware mediante CDs, DVDs, memorias y discos USB.


En windows existe la funcion de autoejecutar aplicaciones cuando se
desea entrar en algun disco (cd, dvd, memoria USB, HD) mediante el uso
de un archivo llamado autorun.inf
Este archivo contiene simples instrucciones como texto plano que refieren o vinculan a algun archivo (batch file) o ejecutable en el mismo disco o carpeta determinada
Cuando el reconocimiento automático está activado el sistema operativo usa la información contenida en autorun.inf y ejecuta el (los) archivo(s)
ahí enumerados.


esto es bastante practico cuando se tiene un cd de instalacion de algun
programa porque al hacer doble clic sobre la unidad donde se encuentra
el cd se autoejecuta la instalacion de dicho programa ya que se ha
creado un archivo autorun.ini en dicho cd que señala al ejecutable que
inicia la instalacion del programa..


esta particularidad es usada por virus que modifican el archivo
autorun.ini para que este señale a algun ejecutable nocivo, el cual al
acceder a la memoria se ejecuta en segundo plano e infecta el sistema y
este a su vez modifica todos lor archivos autorun.ini de todos los
discos dentro del el equipo, por lo que si tienes una memoria limpia en
tu equipo esta se contaminara tambien.


el FD lo que hace es generar un archivo autorun.ini en tu memoria el
cual esta bloqueado a la escritura y no puede borrarse para que desde
tu memoria USB no se puede autoejecutar nada al ingresarla a algun
equipo.


con esto el FD evita la propagacion del virus PERO no evita que tu
memoria USB tenga dentro de ellas archivos nocivos como virus, pero en
este caso estos archivos no se podran autoejecutar y para que puedan
infectar el equipo tienen que ser ejecutados manualmente..


es decir que si ejecutaste el FD en tu equipo con tu memoria USB
conectada esta queda "vacunada" para que no siga propagando los virus
pero puede contener dentro de ella algun virus por lo que como
complemente al FD es recomendable que escanees tu memoria USB para
limpiar cualquier virus que haya quedado en tu equipo..


el FD elimina los archivos de muchas variantes de virus que se
transmiten por memorias USB ya que posee en sus firmas una base datos
con los nombres de dichos virus, pero igual es recomendable scanear la
memoria con un antivirus..


es decir que si ejecutaste el FD puedes estar tranquilo de que no se
propagaran mas virus desde tu USB pero puedes tener algun archivo
nocivo en la misma por lo que debes hacer un analisis con tu antivirus.

Install Fedora to a flash drive using Windows

Source

The following tutorial will show you how to install Fedora 8 or 9 to a USB flash drive using Windows. Fedora is a Linux distribution that is sponsored by Red Hat and is both driven and maintained by the community. It is comprised of only free and open source software and will always remain free to use, modify and redistribute. Recently, Luke Macken and Kushal Das, both active in the Fedora community have put together an intuitive and super easy to use liveusb-creator which can be used to make a Fedora Live USB flash drive. In addition, USB Fedora utilizes a Persistent feature, enabling a user to save and restore changes on subsequent boots. In the following, we will show you how it works.

Prerequisites for Creating a Live USB Fedora:

• Windows host PC (Tested on Windows XP)
• 1GB+ USB flash drive
• liveusb-creator-2.4.zip

How to install Fedora to a flash drive from Windows:

1. Download the Fedora liveusb-creator-2.4.zip
2. Extract the liveusb-creator-2.4.zip to your PC
3. Navigate to the liveusb-creator-2.4 folder and click liveusb-creator.exe to launch the tool
4. Even though the USB Fedora creation process is straight forward, here is a quick rundown of all the steps involved:
   
   1. Select either to Use existing Live CD or Download Fedora
   2. Set the Target Device to point to your USB flash drive
   3. Move the Persistent Overlay slider to set the capacity to use for the persistent image
   4. Click Create Live USB to begin the creation process

A nice progress bar will indicate the progress of your USB Fedora creation. Once the process has finished, simply restart your PC and set your System BIOS or Boot Menu to boot from the USB flash drive.
If all goes well, you should now be booting into your own portable Live USB Fedora 8 or 9.

liveusb-creator

The liveusb-creator is a cross-platform tool for easily installing live operating systems on to USB flash drives.

Features

Completely non-destructive install. There is no need to deal with formatting or partitioning your USB key.

• Supports downloading various Fedora releases, including Fedora 9!
  
• Automatically detects all of your removable devices
  
• Persistent storage creation. This lets you to allocate extra
  space on your USB stick, allowing you to save files and make
  modifications to your live operating system that will persist after you
  reboot. This essentially lets you carry your own personalized Fedora
  with you at all times. (Note: only works with Fedora 9)
  
• SHA1 checksum verification of known releases, to ensure that you've downloaded the correct bits
  
• Works in Windows and Linux.
  

Download

Windows

• Windows executable: liveusb-creator-2.7.zip (8.9M) (ChangeLog)
  

Linux

• Linux Source: liveusb-linux-2.7.tar.gz (94K)
  
• Linux RPM: liveusb-creator-2.7-1.fc9.noarch.rpm (183K)
  

You should also have the following packages

# yum -y install syslinux PyQt4 usermode

Pendrivelinux2008

Source

Warnings:

• Do not attempt to use the USB drive while running Pendrivelinux via Qemu or you will corrupt the filesystem.
• By default, Pendrivelinux will setup user networking, so that you
  can mount shares on the host computer by pointing to smb://10.0.2.2.
  You have to set the network card to use DHCP.

All In One Pendrivelinux 2008 running Natively:

ALL In One Pendrivelinux 2008 running via Qemu:

USB drives: speed & write cycles

Source

Not all USB drives are created equal
Performance and reliability vary, but getting product specs for flash drives can be tricky.
Most USB 2.0 flash drives look the same, but that doesn't mean they perform the same.

Differences in the type of memory and, to a lesser extent, the type of I/O controllers used by USB drives can make one device perform two or three times faster and last (theoretically, at least) 10 times longer than another, even if both sport the USB 2.0 logo.

Unfortunately for the average user, there are no accepted industry standards or certifications to judge what's inside a USB 2.0 flash drive on a store shelf. Without checking reviews or running benchmarks, the only rule of thumb is that the more expensive drives (and those which post performance numbers on the packaging) will tend to be the fastest and, perhaps, last the longest.

The casual user may not ever notice. "For the average user, moving a few files around, or even 20-50MB of data, a slower drive is probably sufficient," says Cameron Crandall, a technology manager at memory vendor Kingston Technology Corp. And while the memory in less expensive drives has a shorter life span than that in more expensive drives, even that is enough to last the lifetime of the drive for an average user.

However, these differences can matter if you're storing large amounts of data, using the drives to store critical information or are using a USB drive to supplement system memory using the ReadyBoost feature in Windows Vista.

Key performance factors

The USB 2.0 standard supports a maximum throughput of 60MB/sec., although "nobody's pushing that limit" with the flash memory used in current USB drives, says Pat Wilkison, vice president of marketing and business development at STEC Inc., a Santa Ana, Calif., manufacturer of memory and storage products.

The single biggest factor in USB drive performance is whether it contains one of two types of memory: SLC (single-level cell) or MLC (multilevel cell). SLC stores one bit, and MLC stores two bits of data in each memory cell. SLC is twice as fast as MLC, says Wilkison, with maximum read speeds of about 14 MB/sec. and write speeds of about 10-12MB/sec. Not surprisingly, almost all current USB flash drives are built using MLC memory, since SLC costs about twice as much as MLC.

Users would see the greatest performance difference between SLC and MLC if they were performing many operations involving small files, rather than relatively few read/write operations on larger files, says John Whaley, principal engineer at MokaFive Inc., whose virtualization software makes it possible for virtual machines to be stored on USB flash drives.

SLC memory also lasts about 10 times as long as MLC, says Crandall, which means one cell in an SLC-based USB drive should last for about 100,000 cycles of writing and erasing data before it fails. However, this difference won't be of much concern to many users.

Have Your Say

Is the speed of your USB drive important -- or a nonissue?

"If you save a file out to your USB drive and use 100 bytes, you're probably not going to write to those same 100 bytes again for a long time, unless for some reason you decide to delete that file or change it," says Crandall. As a result, "the usable lifetime of the device will extend long beyond" the customary five-year warranty, says Mike Sager, vice president of public relations at Kingston.

When USB drives do begin to fail, they do so one cell at a time, not across the board, says Crandall. This is why an SLC-based drive might be worthwhile for a user storing, say, a virtual machine on a flash drive to restore their system after a disaster, according to Wilkison. If the drive began to fail, dropped bits might not be noticed in a photo or music track but could crash the system if they disappeared from a key part of an operating system.

There are features in the I/O controller that can boost performance in USB drives as well. One is the use of multiple channels to simultaneously move data to and from memory, says Brad Anderson, director of product marketing at USB flash drive vendor Lexar Media Inc. Another, he says, is interleaving, which intermixes data flows to and from multiple flash memory chips within the drive to ensure the channel is used to its maximum potential.

As with many other design details, it's difficult for consumers to determine which I/O controller is used in a specific drive and which features it provides. While a consumer could try to find out which I/O controller is used in a specific drive and investigate how that controller works, most buyers will, according to Wilkison, have to "extrapolate from the speed" of the drive what type of controller is in it.

No standard

Right now, possibly the only way to know whether you've bought a drive that uses SLC memory is how much it costs -- the more expensive the drive, the more likely it is to have been built using SLC.

There is one way to judge the quality of a drive besides the price: the Windows ReadyBoost logo, which indicates that the flash drive can be used to supplement system RAM and thus speed the performance of Windows Vista-equipped PCs.

However, the minimum specifications for Windows ReadyBoost are just 2.5MB/sec. for random reads of 4KB of data, and 1.75MB/sec. for random writes of 512KB of data, which Crandall says are typical of lower-priced and lower-speed USB flash drives. Customers who want the maximum benefit from Windows ReadyBoost should opt for a USB drive marketed as a high-performance device and probably priced at the high end of the average for its capacity.

The future

In the first half of 2009, Wilkison predicts, controller manufacturers will begin shipping drives with dual- and even four-channel controllers, which will increase speeds even for slower MLC memory by increasing the number of lanes through which data can be written to and from the memory cells. USB drives combining four-channel controllers with MLC memory will reach speeds of about 60MB/sec. for reads and 30MB/sec. for writes, coming closer to -- but not quite -- saturating the USB 2.0 interface.

For the average consumer for whom price is more important than speed or reliability, any reasonably priced USB drive should do. But if speed or longer life is critical, look for drives advertised as high performance, do your research online and expect to spend more. But even then, you can't be absolutely sure you're getting more speed for your money.

Robert L. Scheier is a freelance technology writer based in Boylston, Mass. He can be reached at bob@scheierassociates.com.

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