Here is from a page I found that may help you. I will include the link as it has a couple of pictures for you: Copying files to a flash drive on a PC: Open My Computer and see which drives are shown. Most computers, for example, have a hard disk such as a C: drive and a few removable storage devices such as a floppy drive, a CD-ROM drive, and perhaps a zip drive. Insert the flash drive into the USB port and watch to see where the USB flash drive appears. Most will appear as removable storage, but some will instead appear as hard drives. Note the name Windows is using to refer to the flash drive ("Removable Disk (G:)," for example). Open My Documents or the location from which you want to transfer files to the flash drive. Select the files or folders you want to save to the flash drive by left-clicking on them. To select more than one, hold down the CTRL key while you click and select all of the files you wish to save. Right-click on the file(s) or folder(s) you selected, then select Send to, then select the name you saw appearing in My Computer for the flash drive ("Removable Disk (G:)," for example). When the copying is finished, do not immediately remove the flash drive from the USB port. Instead, left-click on the Remove Hardware icon located in the System Tray. A window containing a list of the USB devices will appear. Left-click on the Safely Remove Mass Storage Device line that matches your flash drive (for example, Safely Remove Mass Storage Device - Drive(G:)). When you see the following message appear in the bottom left toolbar, it is, as it says, safe to remove the flash drive from the USB port; you may close the message or ignore it, as it will close itself automatically: Of course, you want to use the instructions for XP, as that is what you are running. Ignore the Mac stuff. Here is a link that might be useful: How to Use a USB Flash Drive

The least expensive way to do with is to simply connect both computers to the same home network, share the folder(s) that contain the files she wants to keep, and simply copy the files from the old machine to the new. Certainly you could use a flash drive as well. You don't need a >10 GB drive to copy the data unless it's one big file. Just copy the first 100 files, then the second 100, etc. A 4 GB drive should be under $10 and 8 GB under $15. For occasional use, it really doesn't matter what drive you buy.

The fact the computer said it was not recognised shows the computer is aware 'something' had been attached. As Kudzu notes, it may be defective. You could ask a family member or friend to try it in another computer to confirm that. You could burn the photos to a CD to give away if you do not want to buy another flash drive.

I have two external hard drives, both Western Digital. One has its own power source; the other is powered by USB. Both are 1 TB and I have never had a problem. Pooh Bear ==================== This was sent to me thru one of my Yahoo groups: As I have been going through my archived data discs I have been coming across several of them that have become bad over the years and thus I cannot get anything off of them. There are photos and videos that were on some of them that I cannot replace:-( So, I made an account at an online file storage site to save my precious files to the cloud to help save from disc deterioration. As I was looking around to see what my options were for storing my sensitive data I came across this site and found it interesting. The discs are pricey (about ~$3 a disc) but they are known as the '1000 year disc.' It takes a special burner to burn them. The DVD Burner is like $40 at Best Buy so you can probably find it even cheaper somewhere else if you shop around. Not sure if there are any retail sellers for the M-Discs though. I didn't dig too deep trying to find anything. Check out the site because it is interesting. They say it is like burning the data into a rock, lol! Anyway, I found this a while back and thought I would share it with you real quick while I had the time:-) M-DISC, Write Once and Read Forever. You might feel like you're making a "permanent" backup of your files when you copy them onto a DVD or backup to a computer hard-drive, but the truth is these devices suffer from natural decay and degradation. Current DVD technology uses organic dyes and low laser power to make marks on the data layer of a standard recordable DVD. Over time, these marks become unreadable because organic dyes degrade when exposed to minimal levels of light, heat, and humidity. This means all the data you thought was safely stored could be lost because the discs you used have an average lifespan of only about 3 to 5 years! Why would you risk your data based on an average; hundreds of discs taken into account in that average were corrupt and unreadable after only a few months. With Millenniata, we don't subject you to the possibility of losing your data. When we say "Write Once and Read Forever", we mean it. Here is a link that might be useful: http://millenniata.com/m-disc/