each thumb flash drive will say what it holds for example it might hold 4 gig or 8 gig or less or more. It depends on what type files you will be storing, picture and video files are very large so will take up much more room than just text or document files. go to the folder of the files you want to backup to the thumb drive and right click on it and choose properties it will tell you exactly how much is contained in that folder so you would know you need a flash drive that is big enough to hold that much at least. I think 4 gig is a nice size and they are fairly inexpensive. I buy 4 gig Kingston drives at Big Lots all the time for $12. You can buy them at walmart, best buy, or any stores that sell electronics and computer stuff. I stick with the name brand ones like Kingston, San disk, corsair etc. Here is the link to some over at buy.com Results Within Our Stores general guide for using one Overview of How to use a USB Flash Drive

Hi, Owbist. I don't think dust bunnies have been cleaned out for a year (and maybe not even then). My computer repair guy added 512 mb ram then (it had been only 256) - and I think he would have cleaned out the dust bunnies, but I'm not certain. So I can try that. I think he put in the maximum memory my desktop could hold. I have no idea what firewall I'm using or how to even tell. I know her computer is conected to my linksys router (her connection is wired). I had some vague notion that it included a firewall that served both our computers. But, honestly, "firewall" is one of those terms that scares me bc. I know I should know more about it and make sure I have adequate protection, but I'm not (kind of like some people think of retirement funds- you know it's important but may stick your head in the sand). Last night after I wrote the above post, I did download, update and run superantispyware - which found 167 items, which I then removed. I haven't gotten on to her computer since. (Well, I tried and wanted to remove old, unnecessary software - for a printer we no longer have - but it kind of stopped and froze midstream.) I confess that I do disk cleanup and defrag on my computer, but have forgotten to do hers since I passed it down to her in January. I will do that now. Now, I did the msconfig to see what start up programs are running. Here's the list, but I have no idea what some of them are and if some can be removed: m35rchmn c:?progra 1\myw cnslmain (canon software - a new printer I bought and it's networked) bjmyprt (canon) ssbkgdupdate /(com...) opwarese4 (programfiles/sca...) WrtMon (windows/system) CNMNSUT (CANON) mcmnhdlr (mcafee) mcvsshld (mcafee) realschedul (program files\Com...) jusschedul (program files\java) usrprompt (Program files\Com..) qttask (program files\quicken) - when I used quicken on this picasamediadetector (program files\picasa motiveSB (program 1\Veriz WkUFind (program files\Com McUpdate (program files\mcafe mcagent (program \mcafee KHALMNPR (KHALMNPR.EXE) KHALMNPR (KHALMNPR.EXE) ituneshelper (program files/Itune isfxtray (windows\system hkcmd (windows\system aolsoftware (programfiles\com aoldial (program \files/com - (Note - we don't do dial up_ d/urect/cd (program files\Foxi verizon 1 (program 1?Verizon) ctfmon (windows\system ypager (program files?yahoo google toolbarnotifier (program files\goog msmsgs (program files\Mes money express (program files/micro AOL (program files/AOL superantispywre logitech setpoint microsoft works ca.. (program 1\COMM common startup personal coach (program 1\brod) common start up Most of the above don't make sense to me. I will say that we currently have DSL through verizon (we may change that later) - and we have AOL. Yahoo might have gotten on her computer when I registered for some yahoo groups when it was my computer. She has a logitech wireless mouse and keyboard. Thanks for any help. I will now do disk cleanup and defrag. Thanks. Lynn.

Elaine if HP do not have updated drivers to cure this try phoning the store where you bought the 2 gig Kingston card and seek advice. Perhaps something as simple as an external card reader might cure the problem. I seem to remember you live in Mississauga, if so Canada Computes at Eglinton and Cawthra have a selection of readers for $10. Don't expect too much advice from them though. Good prices but not too helpful with questions. Off to check out my wife's 2 gig memory stick duo now, you have got me thinking.........

A long time ago, I did a Mint Mate install(actual install, not live) onto a 16GB Gigaware USB flash drive. It booted slow as molasses and the first time running apps was just as slow. It ran fine afterward though. I considered getting a faster flash drive such as a SanDisk Extreme, but it wasn't it my budget at that time. I seem to remember playing around with bcd.exe but my memory is short. Some day I'll have to give EasyBCD a try. In the meantime, GRUB works for me. An extraordinarily boring (and embarrassing, mostly because I flubbed customizing GRUB2 because I'm too lazy to learn to use it properly right now) video of my installing Mint Mate alongside Windows 10 in a virtual machine... I suppose the point is that they can, at least sometimes, live happily beside one another. I was really expecting Mint Mate to offer to "install alongside windows" and auto-partition but it did not. Don't some other Ubuntu based distros do that? Or is it just full blown Ubuntu? Anyway, after all my stumbling, doing it incorrectly, redoing etc., Grub now reads exactly the way I want, remembers the previous boot choices etc. ... That's just a virtual machine though. I wouldn't suggest others try it on their real machines. I suppose if one were to practice setting up a dual boot system, a virtual environment would be the safe place to learn, right? BTW, I used Oracle's VirtualBox in the above videos. Free and open source. Oops, I just read the warning on the VirtualBox download page: "Please be aware that Windows 10 is not yet officially supported!" Oh well, seems to run fine for me.