Have you ever wanted to save your files to a USB flash drive? When you know how, the process is very easy! Follow these steps and you will be the master of Saving Files to a USB Flash Drive. This guide will focus on Windows as the platform for saving files to the drive.
Step 1
Buy a USB Flash drive. These are readily available at many electronics stores in varying capacity. Remember, the higher capacity, the more expensive the USB unit will be. For reference, a CD-ROM disc holds approximately 700mb of information, and a single-layer DVD-ROM disc holds approximately 4.7Gb of data.
Step 2
Insert it into the USB port in your computer. If you are running Windows XP or Windows Vista, the recognition process should be automatic. You will receive a balloon pop-up window at your system tray regarding this process. Do not use the drive until the balloon pop-up states "Your new hardware is installed and ready to use." Once installed, you will either have a new mount point in Linux/BSD based software, or a new assigned drive letter in Windows. A computer with many drives may have a mid-alphabet letter, such as I: or J:. For the purposes of this How-to, focus will be maintained on Windows systems.
Step 3
To save a file from on of the Microsoft office application save the file(s) to your computer first.
Step 4
Next click "save as" and choose the device you want to save it to.
Step 5
Create a file to be saved, or use an existing file.
- Inside an application:
- Open the File -> Save OR File -> Save As... to save a copy.
- At the drop-down box at the top of the Save dialog, look for your new drive. It will most likely be titled Removable Disk X: (Where X is the letter mentioned earlier).
- Using Explorer:
- Browse to your file using My Computer.
- Right-click (context click) on your file.
- Select the 'Send To...' Option.
- Click on your Removable Drive.
Step 6
Note: The Explorer method only saves a copy of the file to your drive, it will not move the original file.
Step 7
When Finished, Click on the icon with an arrow and rectangle in the system tray to eject your hardware. Make sure you quit all saveable applications such as Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and Excel before doing so.
Step 8
Remove the USB drive from the USB port.
Tips
- Remember the drive letter for your USB device.
- Additionally, you can run certain programs from your flash drive. These are colloquially called "portable apps". Such programs store your preferences and other associated files in a folder on the flash drive, not on the host computer, so you can take your settings with you on the go. Some programs are offered in portable form (often referred to as ".zip", which means you can just unpack the folder to a destination of your choosing) and others are offered by third parties in a portable form. Not all are legal, however.
Warnings
Do
not remove the USB drive without having completed the 'Safely remove hardware' procedure as indicated above.
Things You'll Need
- A Computer.
- A USB Flash Drive.
- Basic File navigation skills.
