I got a flash drive, don't know what I'm doing
 

And I'm not kidding. I stick the stupid thing into the USB port, a little message appears on the bottom right of my screen telling me it recognizes a media storage device, so I get all excited.

I then go to MY COMPUTER and I can't find it anywhere.

I want to copy the MY DOCUMENTS folder and Alan's favorite places, and my Flip videos.

That's all I want to do. This is a 4G flash drive made by Sony.

I MUST be doing something wrong.

I tried going to google and typing "I can't find my flash drive and Windows doesn't recognize my Flash drive but when I click on any links it sends me to a Back Up data website.

So what exactly am I doing wrong?

I tried going to youtube but they all say to go to MY COMPUTER and it will appear, or some software will pop up.

Nothing happening here.

HELP!!!!

Melody

oohh ooohh. I took it out of the USB thingee and plugged it back in and a thing popped up saying it's REMOVABLE DISK K.

I assume that's my Flash Drive? I'm going to try copying and pasting SOMETHING.

Still trying to learn

lol

Melody

Mel,

If you right click on the start button (bottom left) and then click 'Explore', you should be able to find it there amongst your other drives.

http://bestsmileys.com/computer1/19.gif

OOOHHHHHH I think I did it!! I initially copied the WHOLE My Pictures folder. It was indicating 9 minutes remaining. I didn't want to do that anymore so I clicked cancel. I tried deleting the icon that said MY PICTURES in the K thing but it's telling me that this is a system file and if I delete it my computer won't run so I stopped. It's still there.

Can I safely delete the MY PICTURES folder from the Flash Drive? Very confusing when it tells you "this is a system file, blah blah". I want to make sure I'm not deleting anything off of my hard drive.

Okay, so now Melody knows how to use a Flash Drive.

I copied Alan's Favorite Places (I had put an icon to this on my desktop) because I knew eventually I would get a flash drive.

So I also tested copying a file from the My Documents folder. I copied a banana muffin recipe.

So I now have a 4G flash drive. Don't know exactly how much 4G means but is it a lot?

And I have a lot of Microsoft Word documents. I also have a lot of wordpad documents but when I go to MY DOCUMENTS, it shows them all as W files (meaning Microsoft word right?)

What if my new computer does not have Microsoft Word? How do I transfer Word documents?

I know I can copy and paste them into Wordpad. Right? Then I just copy the whole Wordpad??

Oh, and when I clicked on the ALAN'S FAVORITE PLACES thing in my Flash Drive (I wanted to see what would happen), a whole bunch of programs came ups asking me which one I wanted to use to open this folder.

so when I do buy the new computer and I stick the flash drive into a usb port, how do I get Alan's favorite places to go to his FAVORITE PLACES??

I know you guys can do this in your sleep and when I know what I'm doing, I'll be able to do this in my sleep too but THIS IS MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH FLASH DRIVES.

I don't want to accidentally delete ANYTHING.

Oh, this is so exciting I feel like I'm 20 years old.

ROFL.

Melody

As long as you used COPY & not MOVE - it should be fine to delete the files on the flash drive .

You can double check first by making sure the files ares still located on your computer systems hard drive.

If you know where they usually are just find it and make sure or use the search tool.

Unplug the flash drive so when the files are found - you will know it isn't the ones on the flash drive.

4G - it's the same way they measure hard drives - like a 350 G hard drive 4G should hold most of your docs & pic/videos- if it gets full it will let you know.

Some of the USB drives have a compression program on them so it compresses the files to get more on it.

"when I clicked on the ALAN'S FAVORITE PLACES thing in my Flash Drive (I wanted to see what would happen), a whole bunch of programs came ups asking me which one I wanted to use to open this folder."
just pick IE or Firefox which ever one he uses.


Word docs-
There is a free program called Open Office - it will convert & open Word docs
http://www.openoffice.org/

Okay, let's see if I have this right.

My flash drive thing is not plugged in. I just checked and all the MY PICTURES and the MY DOCUMENTS are still there, so I can safely hit the delete button in the Flash Drive, right?

And when I get my new computer, and I plug in the flash drive and I click on Alan's favorites, and a thingee pops up, I will select either IE or Mozilla..right??

And when I get the new computer, and it does not have Microsoft Word, I just go online, download this Open Office software, install it on my computer, and then I plug in the Flash Drive, select the My Documents option and a thing will pop up asking me where I want to put it AND I'LL SEE OPEN OFFICE and I'll select it?? Did I get this right?

See, I CAN LEARN STUFF!!!

lol

Oh, this is so funny!!

Melody
And Thanks much

[And when I get the new computer, and it does not have Microsoft Word, I just go online, download this Open Office software, install it on my computer, and then I plug in the Flash Drive, select the My Documents option and a thing will pop up asking me where I want to put it AND I'LL SEE OPEN OFFICE and I'll select it?? Did I get this right?]

All you would need to do before or after installing open office - is just copy the documents file over to the new computer in the My documents folder
Just like the same place it was on the old computer, only it will be on the new one & the copy still on the flash drive.

When you start Open Office, or even Word Pad - you might test Word Pad now before you do any changes - open a doc with word pad -I haven't tried it . I don't have any word docs to test it with.
It did open another file type.

When you start Open Office - then in the menu bar select Open and it will pop up a box where you can find the file or document that you want to open.
but you may not even need it if Word Pad does the job.

Okay, I have one more final question.

Let's say I buy the new computer, get it home, plug it in and I'm ready to go. I then plug in the flash drive, it comes up in Drive K I would assume, and I want to put Alan's favorites on the hard drive.

Do I use the copy feature, or the move feature.

I really am not sure how I get stuff from the flash drive over to the hard drive.

If I'm dragging and dropping, let's say I want to put the contents of the my documents folder (from the flash drive) into the my documents folder of my new hard drive. (and the same for Alan's favorites)

Exactly how do I do this.

I'm trying to figure this out. I imagine myself plugging the flash drive into the new computer, the screen pops up and I can see the folder named Alan's favorites.

I then right click on the MY FAVORITES thing and I gather I'm given various options. Like copy, or move.

Exactly what do I do next?

NOW I'LL GO QUIETLY!!!

lol

Melody

Use copy - that way you always have the spares if needed again on the usb drive.

some videos about flash drive use-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_6bItL_cKY

basically you just reverse the process from copying the files to the flash drive . Quite a few ways to move files -
You can do the 2 window approach and drag and drop into the correct location.
Or you can highlight the file & right click - send to or copy & paste
Or you can highlight the file - then go up to the Menu bar & select Copy to Folder and then a box will open up with a list of places - you select the place and off it goes.


wherever you got the favorites or any file from that's where they would go back on the new computer.
I usually do a backup of my bookmarks /favorites and save it in My documents - so that is probably where to put Alans stuff.

So I should put Alan's stuff in the My Documents folder on the new computer? Alan uses Mozilla, so I gather if the new computer does not come with Mozilla, but comes with IE, then I would go on IE, go to Mozilla, download Firefox, and then (see, this is where i get confused).

Once I know I have Mozilla on my computer, Alan will want to see all his favorite places. So I gather that if I did what you said I would go to My Documents, find the folder named Alan's Favorites (it's a folder, right?) and then I would double click on it and it would prompt me to open with something and then I choose Mozilla Firefox?

Did I get this part right?

Good Lord, one would think I know how to do this but I don't.

Thanks, Melody

P.S. One more question.

Can't I get the new computer, download Firefox, then insert the Flash drive, find Alan's favorites, click on it, and it would prompt me to open it using SOMETHING?? Is that when I could choose Mozilla?

Do I have anything right here?

lol
Thanks