Questions about USB Flash Drives

Got to admit that I never used Flash drives, just CD's. :-o So yesterday I bought 2 of them, being:
SanDisk Cruzer USB 2.0 Flash Drive, 4 GB each. Of course no instructions included.

I want to copy "My Documents" in its entirety onto one of them but since I'm a complete noob regarding hardware I'm lost.

Questions:

1. Do I have to plug in my External Hard Drive prior to plugging in the USB Flash Drive to let Windows find the next Drive Letter?

2. Can I just copy and paste "My Documents" folder (which consists of documents, music, pictures etc. sub folders) into the Flash Drive or do I have to copy and paste each sub folder individually?

Heck, I googled for info. and found that one can also drag and drop a folder into the Flash Drive but I am afraid to lose "My Documents" or any folder on the HD. When dragging and dropping stuff in Windows on my HD it just get transferred to where I dropped it without leaving the file or folder in its original location. What gives?

TIA

 

You don't have to worry about your external being connected as the USB flash will always be assigned the next available letter. It doesn't matter that one day it is assigned K: and one day assigned L: the data will still be there no matter what letter is assigned. Just as it might be assigned F: on a different computer it still has your files. The drive letter is just for the OS at that particular moment to access the drive.

Can say for sure. It should copy all sub folders as far as I know. I'd copy it and then look to make sure all your files are in the copy.

Dragging and dropping between drive letters should automatically default to copy mode. I think you would have to use right-click and choose Move to get the OS to actually delete the original from the HD. And, yes, you are correct that when dragging and dropping within the same drive (drive letter) the default is to move the file but this won;t be the case for the USB flash.

*******
The one thing that might appear is that some SanDisk drives come with U3 program. This program is assigned its own drive letter if I remember correctly. So you might have a small drive of 100mb show up in MyComputer or Disk Management that runs that program. And then a second drive letter with about 3.5gb which is where you actually save your files. Just adding in case your drives came with U3 installed.

 

I am guessing you have Windows XP because you mention My Documents.

Edit: I just saw the info that sach2 posted about U3 so the following might not work the same way with them. I've never used U3, my computer is to old for those "new fangled gadgets"

If you don't plug in your External Hard Drive first then Windows will give the flashdrive the "next available letter" which will probably be the same as your External Hard Drive was. This is not permanent but can be a nuisance if you have shortcuts to your External Hard Drive on your Desktop
If you are going to be using these a lot and want to put shortcuts to various stuff on the flash drive you might want to look at assigning a letter to each external hard drive and flashdrive then it will never change on your computer.

You probably know how to do this but just in case and possibly for the benefit of others I will post it here. I forget where I found this but my thanks go to the original poster.
How to assign a letter to an external Harddrive or Flahdrive
Step 1
Connect the external hard drive or flash drive to your computer and log on with an administrative account.
Step 2
Open the Start menu and choose "Control Panel."
Step 3
Double-click on "Administrative Tools" and then open "Computer Management."
Step 4
Choose "Disk Management" under the "Storage" options on the left side of the window.
Step 5
Right-click on the letter of the drive you want to change and select "Change Drive Letter and Path."
Step 6
Click on the "Change" button and then choose a new letter for the drive. Click "OK" and the new drive letter will now show up in the "My Computer"

I know the fear
Best (least stress) way I have found is to create a new folder on the Flashdrive called My Documents
Open My Documents on your computer > select a folder (or more than one) > Edit > Copy To Folder..... and browse to the My Documents on the Flashdrive.
If you want to give the Flashdrive My Documents a custom icon (less confusing) then create the new folder on the desktop first, Customize the folder and give it an icon then move it to the Flashdrive. You can't Customize when it is on the Flashdrive, the Customize tab does not exist..

I synchonize the whole of My Douments Computer with My Documents Flashdrive using SyncToy but you might have your own system already.
http://majorgeeks.com/Microsoft_SyncToy_for_Windows_XP_d4757.html

 

I never copy and paste.
Plug in the flash drive (no you don't have to plug in the external unless it has files on it you want to copy to the flash drive.

Open an Explorer window and click on the USB drive. The right pane will be blank.
Open My Documents and select the files you want to move/copy.
With the files selected, hold down the right mouse key and move the cursor to the blank pane of the Explorer window showing the USB drive contents. Lift the mouse button and select "copy here".
I never select move because if there is any hiccups, you lose the files. If you select copy, and there is an unforseen problem, the files are still on your computer.

After the files have been copied and you've checked they are available on the flash drive, you can start to delete the files on your computer.

Sorry for the late reply. I got called away and did not refresh the screen. i see others have answered the question.

 

Wow guys!! That was fast and such thorough info. Thanks a bunch. CD-RW's just don't cut it anymore for my extensive music and pictures folders so that's why I want to start using Flash Drives. I'll let you know later today or tomorrow how it turned out.

I have ATM one question which I forgot to ask.

Is it possible to delete all info from the Flash Drive and re-use it just like a CD-RW?

 

Yes oma, they're rewritable. However, I've heard that flash drives can go bad for long term storage. I'd rather use a DVD-R which has about the same capacity as to what you are thinking of getting. I'd just use them to copy stuff from one computer to another. I've seen people crying to get their important photos back which was not possible when they died.

 

Augie, I just have a DVD ROM as this is an 2004 ancient PC. Still thinking about getting a new PC in the future with a CD-RW/DVD-RW or whatever it's called. I have my pictures all on CD's and some of my favorite music on CD's as well and create images every month or so on my external HD with the free Acronis v 8, that's all it can do. Thanks for pointing out that Flash Drives may not be the most reliable backup solution.

 

Because flash drives use ssd type memory, I move anything I want off the drive. I never erase or delete files on the stick. If you want the files banished, move them off to a computer and erase the files on the computer's hard drive.
I have over 24 USB sticks and so far I only had problems with one caused by me. I fixed it (used the HP formatting tool) and I'm using it again.

 

Thanks plodr, great to know!! I'll stick to your recommendations as well. Didn't know that these flash drives use ssd type memory.

For references, I've made printouts of all the posts in this thread.