Not Your Father’s Old “Thumb Drive” – USB Technology Today and Tomorrow
Initially, the USB drive device or thumb drive was a simple way to copy files from one computer to another. They would be something you would pick up at trade shows that where branded and had the company’s product catalog on it. Now, if you search the internet for USB drives you will find thousands of sites offering USB’s in millions of different forms and molds. You will also see companies that are utilizing this media in various business models and markets world wide. (www.aderra.net) With the increase in available capacity, you can now have movies, music, documents and utilities all on a portable drive that fits your pocket or looks like Yoda. (www.cfgear.com ) The CD and DVD physical media are quickly being eliminated as the reusable, portable and sometimes fashionable USB devices are taking over. I recently had a technical problem that required a USB.
Can a USB device be a boot device? Could it be possible? Yes it is. We were recently contacted by a client who had a laptop that he locked himself out of by incorrectly typing the password Over and Over and Over. He didn’t know the administrator password. Of course this laptop didn’t have a floppy or a CD/DVD drive. All of the new laptop mini’s only have USB drives. We tried everything we could think of to get logged in. We came across a company called Password-reset (http://www.password-reset.com/index.php ). I quickly found that they had a Bootable USB version of their software. I followed the simple instructions to create the bootable content, format the USB and copy the updated content to the USB drive. Using the bootable USB and this software I had the password reset and logged back in quickly.
Pretty slick.
