I’m in the market for a flash drive. Shopping around, I found one I liked, but I was surprised to see it required a minimum operating system, Windows 2000 (with SP4/XP – whatever that is) to be exact.
I never suspected a flash drive would have such a requirement. Two of my PCs meet the minimum, but a third one (a 6+ y.o. Dell) runs on Windows 98SE. I’m getting the drive so I can easily transfer files between all three machines.
So, is the Windows 2000 requirement a set-in-stone thing, or just a “preference” so that the drive will operate at the minimum advertised speed? If the drive is merely slow in my Windows 98SE machine, I can deal with that; if it won’t function at all, I better look elsewhere. Please advise.
I have 128 MB and 1 Gig flash drives that I use with Windows 98SE. I had to download a driver from the manufacture’s website. For any later OS the support is built in. I suspect your manufacturer just doesn’t want to bother.
Of course you could look on-line and see if there is a Windows 98SE driver for it.
That is Windows 2000 with service pack 4 installed, or Windows XP.
Service packs are bug fixes and security updates. If you have Windows 2000 you can download service pack 4 (and other service packs) from Microsoft. If you have automatic updates turned on, you may already have the service packs installed.
A lot of USB stuff doesn’t work well (or at all) with Windows 98. You might want to consider just putting the machines all on a single network so that you can transfer stuff between them.
Here is the manufacturer’s page with the Win98SE driver for the SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB drive. It’ll be fine, stuyguy – I’ve installed the equivalent driver on several Win98SE machines. It’s not a function of the particular brand of USB drive – they all need one with Win98SE.
I would imagine that Circuit City (the owner of the webpage that the OP linked to) finds it easier to specify Win2K / XP rather than have to explain to customers how to download and install a driver, and have to deal with customers who couldn’t get it to work. Plus, with that guideline, an in-store salesperson gets to say “maybe you need a new computer – step right this way!”.
[QUOTE=Antonius Block] Here is the manufacturer’s page with the Win98SE driver for the SanDisk Cruzer Micro USB drive… QUOTE] Antonius, thanks, but your link does not work. Could you try it again for me? Thanks a bunch.
First, thanks for all the help from various posters.
I bought the flash drive I wanted, but try as I might I could not get it to work on my PC – even with the downloaded driver in QED’s link. None of the supporting literature said that it would work with Windows 98SE, so I guess they were not kidding. I suspect that an earlier model of the same drive would work with 98SE, but the latest model simply will not, downloaded driver or no.
Anyway, I returned it for a refund and purchsed a smaller one of a different brand. It clearly stated it would work with 98SE if I downloaded their driver. I did so, and it seems to be working fine. I’m happy.
My only question now is, What do I do with the folder containing the unzipped driver? It’s on my desktop and I want it gone or moved. Any suggestions, Dopers?
Just delete it. If it’s the driver your current device is using, Windows will have copied the necessary files to wherever they should go and the installation files are not actively required. if you think you might need them again (for example, if you anticipate reinstalling the OS), then you might want to burn a copy to CD before you delete it.
The reason it requires 2K or XP is that it is a U3 drive, which contains a partition that has software that autoloads on insertion and doesn’t work with 98.
You could have run the U3 nuker program and turned it into a regular flash drive that would work with 98.