Tim from OH writes:
Many flash drives come pre-loaded with a small amount of software. Is it safe to delete this if you plan to use the flash drive only for storage?
That really depends on the kind of software on the flash drive, Tim.
If the flash drive comes with free applications/games/trials: This kind of software is ok to remove since it’s not directly tied to how the flash drive functions. The best way to remove this software is to reformat the flash drive before you begin using it.
Step 1.) Plug in the flash drive and open My Computer (or Computer for Windows 7 users) and right click on the flash drive (Usually drive letter E or higher in this example it’s drive F) and left click format.
Step 2.) You can change the drive’s label (the name that comes up next to drive letter – it was “Corsair” on my drive by default, but can be changed) and click Start. This will reformat the drive and wipe out everything on it. Once it is complete, the drive will be ready to use without any software wasting space.
If the flash drive comes with encryption software/security software: This may be very dangerous to remove and you should contact the device manufacturer. Some flash drives have a hardware encryption, which requires a program to stay on the flash drive and run to decrypt the information on it. Do not reformat one of these drives unless the manufacturer indicates to you that the included software can be removed.
~Tim
Tags: flash drive, junk, usb disk, usb flash
Tim,
Please stop telling people to format their flash drives. Flash drives have a limited number of writes that can be performed and then they die and a format does a lot of writes that don’t need to be done. If they don’t want the stuff they should just do a normal delete of those directories and files.
Great info. Thanks