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

Well I am using Mepis7.0 and a version of Ubuntu7.10 called gOS currently. I would recommend Mepis7.0 highly to any new users because most everything just works out of the box with Mepis with not too much tinkering around. Ubuntu is also a good choice however I much prefer the KDE desktop to the Gnome which comes with Ubuntu, so instead I would recommend Kubuntu which is Ubuntu with KDE instead of Gnome. I would NOT recommend gOS, I am a global moderator on the gOS forum and really it is just a mess, it is a very incomplete version and the people that put it out have changed it several times and not always for the better. So because of all the problems with it I just do not recommend it. The great thing about linux is there is a flavor for everyone! And lots of linux community out there willing to help. Changing from dial up in my opinion is absolutely one of the best moves a person can make! It becomes a whole new world. I am on verizon fios which I love because it is so stable and extremely fast. IF you get a good modem/router that has a built in Nat firewall on, and install a software firewall like zonealarm free you will be on your way to stopping the bad guys. With Linux of course that is less of a worry but there are firewalls and antivirus programs for linux, in fact in Mepis7 the guarddog firewall comes with it set up and on, as well as ClamAV antivirus, pretty neat since it is all free. Most of the versions of linux come as a live cd which means you can take the cd put it in your computer then reboot the pc so that it now boots from the cd drive (on some pc you have to set the boot order in the bios) when the pc boots up it is running off of the linux cd, nothing gets installed to your pc, you can log in to the demo and look around and use it just like it was installed on your computer, you can get a good feel for it that way and even browse the internet using the provided firefox browser. When you log off you take the cd out and next time you reboot you are right back to your regular pc. To install it once the live cd is in and you are running from it there is an install button right on the desktop of the linux distro you just hit install and follow the directions. Now if you are going to be doing a dual boot system that is more detailed since you will have to do some partitioning to keep your windows partition and create a new partition for linux to live on. But again that partition program is built right into the live cd and is pretty easy, however I would get some one who knows a little about partitioning to help out. You do not want to accidentally wipe out your windows!

On many/most/all thumb drives there is a tiny LED light, do you see it with yours? Right click Start click Open Windows Explorer In the new window look down the left side for your thumb drive, possibly showing as the F drive. When you insert the thumb drive is there an audible signal? When you remove it is there an audible signal? What happened when you visited the link Zep provided? Simply saying you tried everything is not helpful, a more detailed reply could help considerably. Chuggerguy asked if you daughter had a Mac or Linux program. Does she? Did she format the thumb drive? These are normally formatted in FAT format.

Yes, a flash drive is essentially just like any other drive, and as pkponder says, just use Windows Explorer to drag folders and files into and out of it. Make sure your different groups of files - say photos - stay in their own Photos folder on the Flash drive, so things don't get all mixed up. Make new folders when necessary. When you get to the new computer, just drag files to the places that you want them - probably similar locations as in the old computer. Also I always use a two pane Windows Explorer view so I see the folders on the left, and folders and files on the right. Open up as many Windows Explorer windows as you like, and drag from one to the other. You can even do copy and paste. Try experimenting a little bit - you'll probably find it's not that difficult. By the way, Microsoft has an Easy Transfer Tool which started with XP but I believe is builtin starting with Vista. That would probably do it all for you : http://www.nextofwindows.com/how-to-using-easy-transfer-to-migrate-data-between-xp-vista-windows-7/ and the following . . . It looks like you have to start with XP, but I believe it works just as well starting with Vista. Here is a link that might be useful: Migrate XP to Windows 7 with Easy Transfer and a USB Drive