My SIL needs to load about 40 thumbdrives (AKA flash drives, memory sticks) with a the same group of pictures. The pictures are currently on “the cloud” (AKA Dropbox), but I would assume it’s easy to move them to the local hard drive. What is the best/fastest way to put these pictures on a bunch of thumbdrives?
Another wrinkle: They copied the pictures to one of the thumbdrives, but when they plugged it into another PC it asked for a username and password.
Any help would be appreciated.
More info is needed. It shouldn’t be that complicated although it may be a little tedious.
All she has to do is download the pictures to her local hard drive, make the content exactly like she wants in a local folder and then plug in the flash drives to drag and drop the content to each one.
Depending on the computer, she may be able to copy to more than one at a time but there is no getting around having to cycle through all of them individually.
The password issue is separate. Either the flash drives themselves have some encryption or one or more of the files have password protection. That isn’t typical or the default and it needs to be removed somehow before it gets distributed.
In general, flash drives operate just like any other drive and you can just copy whatever you want back and forth between them and any other type of drive seamlessly through drag and drop or cut and paste. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to copy a typical set of pictures to 40 flash drives once the content has been established.
Did you actually copy the files or just shortcuts to the files in Dropbox?
Two Methods, the first was mentioned above.
Another: Buy a USB JHub/Strip with 5 or more ports, make sure it is USB 3.0
Copy files from Dropbox to local hard drive.
If running Windows, close everything or restart in Safe Mode. Or you can go to Start>Run and type 'MSCONFIG" and then uncheck the box that says “Load Startup Items” Then Restart Computer (This is to clear memory, it will save time)
Plug in all of the USB sticks and drag and drop each set of files to each one. It’ll take some time but if the memory is clear, it should save many hours instead of doing them one by one.
Good Luck!
nm. Re-read the OP.
Create a DOS batch file that will copy all the files from your local hard drive onto the flash drive.
Then all she has to do is enter that one command for each new flash drive and it will copy them all to it. You can even make that batch file a link on the desktop that she just has to click once for each flash drive.
A side benefit: copys done this way generally run much faster than a Windows drag-and-drop copy.
op never stated whose pictures they were. therefore, i would check each file for virus/malware before downloading each file to local-drive. oh … and you probably don’t need to make drop-box account for yourself … and you definitely should not install drop-box software on your computer.
Why not?
This is pure bunk.
The limiting factor by far is the speed of the thumb drives. Messing with starting Windows in a special mode will accomplish zero. But it will confuse the OP & his/her SIL.
Agreed. A USB drive is not going to be any faster when Windows is running in safe mode. In fact, the drive may not function properly if it needs a special driver which doesn’t get installed in safe mode.
Yes, the least hassle is to have one of those USB hubs, plug in and copy to 4 or 5 sticks at a time. See if you can find an el-cheapo one at Walmart or the Dollar Store.
Yes, it sounds like you only downloaded the shortcuts. (Icon has little arrow in bottom left) or web shortcuts (is the icon for each photo a photo or an internet explorer icon?) Download what you want to local. You certainly don’t want each of 40 copy jobs coming down from the web. Create a folder (like C:\STICK for example). download the folders into there. Verify they are the actual JPG files (right click, properties - should be JPG).
When folder is ready copy contents to the sticks - one at a time or more. Get it going and check back later. I’m guessing USB3 may not matter unless these are 40 fancy USB sticks.
Thanks for all of the replies. After I posted this she told me that she decided to have their IT guy handle it. :smack: But there is still good information here, so I’ll forward a link to this to her.
ISTM that a batch file and a hub would be way faster than just dragging and dropping the files 1 stick at a time. So, if my memory serves me, it would look something like
Copy C:\pics\*.* F:\*:*
Copy C:\pics\*.* G:\*:*
Copy C:\pics\*.* H:\*:*
Copy C:\pics\*.* I:\*:*
Copy C:\pics\*.* J:\*:*
Copy C:\pics\*.* K:\*:*
(depending on what driver letters the memory sticks get assigned, of course)
saved as PICCOPY.BAT
Then we just plug 6 of the sticks into a hub (depending on the hub of course), open a DOS prompt window, and type RUN PICCOPY.BAT
How important is it to “Safely remove hardware” after each round?
I am a professional IT person and, IMO, it isn’t important at all. I never follow that step. Just make sure the copy is complete before you yank the flash drive out of the USB slot. The worst that could happen is that you have to reformat the drive and do the copy again which doesn’t sound like a big deal in this case (all that step does is make sure that nothing is reading or writing to the flash drive before you take it out; it should be self-evident if your copy is done).
Two thoughts.
you don’t need “Run”. You just enter C:\whateverpath>PICCOPY.BAT
and that’ll do it.
The way that’s written the 6 copies will take place serially. So although you only have to fiddle with inserting and removing the sticks as a group 1/6th as often, you’re losing any possiblity of doing the whole job faster by doing them in parrellel. If you have a USB 3.0 or 2.0 port and hub, then even if the sticks themselves are USB 1.1 and are slow to write you’ll gain some speed if you copy all 6 at once. Also you’re using the COPY command that was obsolete back in the 1990s. Better to use XCOPY instead.
With those changes your bat file will read about like this:
start xcopy C:\pics\*.* F:\*:*
start xcopy C:\pics\*.* G:\*:*
start xcopy C:\pics\*.* H:\*:*
start xcopy C:\pics\*.* I:\*:*
start xcopy C:\pics\*.* J:\*:*
start xcopy C:\pics\*.* K:\*:*
You’ll see it spawn 6 command windows, one per drive. Then as each finishes it’ll disappear. Once all 6 are gone, swap in a new set of drives and launch it again.
The next round of the fappening is about to begin…