A simple 'cure' for USB drive malfunctions

If the computer does not recognize the USB drive or disables this device even if you tried to do the right procedure, try the following easy ways.

Want to turn off the drive when Windows does not turn off

When you want to remove this device from your PC, sometimes users see the message that the drive cannot be turned off immediately and try again later.

Way 1 . Open the task bar and system tray to check if any programs are running files outside the USB drive and close them. In fact, when you have turned off those files, there are still some programs that run them.

Method 2 . If it still doesn't work, use Windows Task Manager:

- Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to open this window. If you use Windows Vista, just click Start> Task Manager .

- On the Windows Task Manager window, click the Processes tab .

- Check the list of computer processing activities, find what is related to the USB drive, for example a similar name on the drive.

- If you see, select it and press End Process button> OK .

- Try turning off the USB drive again.

Method 3 . If Windows still has not allowed the drive to be removed, users can apply "strong measures" to turn off the computer, remove the USB and restart the computer.

Method 4 . Use USB Safely Remove ($ 20) to display activities that cause problems for your computer and turn off quickly.

USB drive is slow

Formatting USB drives according to NTFS standards can speed up to 70% compared to FAT. However, the problem is that the standard is only compatible with Windows 2000, XP and Vista operating systems. Depending on the configuration of the system, people can also use it on a Mac or Linux machine. Thus, depending on the machine, the USB drive using NTFS will be effective. Most computers now read FAT and FAT32 format data.

But formatting NTFS can cause problems because it stores write operations and it is easy to lose data when unplugging a USB drive before receiving a "safe drive removal" alarm.

However, for those who need speed can do the following:

- In the drive catalog window, right-click on the flash drive and click Properties .

- Select the Hardware tab> select the flash drive in the list.

- Press the Hardware button.

- In the resulting dialog box, click Policies > Optimize for performance > OK > OK .

- Right-click on the flash drive and select Format .

- In the File system drop-down menu, select NTFS and click NTFS .

The computer does not "see" the USB drive

First, try plugging the USB into another computer and plugging another USB drive into this computer to find out the cause. However, users can try to uninstall and reinstall the driver easily.

- Plug the USB into the computer.

- If using Windows XP, select Start > Programs > right-click My Computer > Properties . Click the Hardware > Device Manager tab. If using Vista, click Start > type devide manager > press Enter .

- You will find this drive listed under Disk drives .

- Right-click on this drive and select Uninstall > OK .

- Remove the plugged-in USB drive. The driver will automatically reinstall.

The problem with the Vista operating system is that it does not recognize the drive in some situations, such as a PC being in a sleep state (Hibernate). Microsoft released a patch for the bug in October 2007, but only the original version was updated.