We all have some old USB in a drawer, a USB that, probably due to its limited capacity, is collecting dust in our drawer. However, despite this important handicap, we can give it a new life by using it in one of the ways that we show you below.
Of course, an old USB that didn’t work properly and that we kept because we didn’t know how to recycle it correctly since we didn’t want to throw it in the trash directly will be of no use to us.
The uses that we can give to old USB is the same that we can also give to memory cards that we have stored in the drawer. First of all, the first thing we must do is check that they work correctly. To do so, we access Command Prompt (CMD) and use the command
chkdsk /fd:
If the drive where we have connected the USB is not D, we will use instead the letter assigned by the system to the USB drive or memory card. This command is responsible for detecting and fixing bad sectors that the memory card or USB may have. If it has errors that it cannot solve, it will indicate it after performing the analysis, so it will not be valid for us to give it a new life.
Store portable applications
Using portable applications is the simplest solution to prevent the Windows registry from being affected by the applications that we usually install on our computer. These applications are especially useful when we don’t need them continuously, but rather sporadically. Using an old USB to have all these applications at hand and take them wherever we go is an excellent option.
Make backup copies
If the USB drive has a considerable size, we can use it to make backup copies of all the files that we have stored on our PC using applications such as Allway Sync , an application that analyzes the content of origin and destination (where the copy is made) to copy only the files that have been modified . Using the free version of this app is more than enough for most users.
Key of a pc
Protecting your Windows login is critical, especially when working in a shared work environment. However, not all users remember to activate the lock screen when they get up and walk away from their computer temporarily.
A possible use of an old USB is to use it as a key for our computer using applications such as Predator , an application automatically locks the device when we remove the USB , just like a car turns off when we remove the key from the ignition.
As a safe
If we like to carry a copy in digital format of our personal, banking and other data, we can use a USB to store all this data, as long as we use an application to encrypt its content , since, otherwise, if we lose the USB , can be a major problem at all levels.
Recovery unit
In order to always have a Windows installation medium at hand or to have a Linux distro that runs from the USB, it never hurts to use an old USB for this purpose, especially if we do not have other computers at hand or in our environment closest, since it will allow us to access the system and find a solution to the problem that affects the computer if it does not start correctly.
In this case, using a memory card is not feasible, since computer equipment only allows us to boot the equipment from an internal hard drive or a USB drive connected to the computer, be it a pen drive or a hard drive.
