I have my Flash Drive plugged in. Where do I locate its presence so that I can safely extract it? I find if I do leave it plugged in, the next time I want to turn my computer on, I get a message indicating an error and am not allowed to log on.

The short and simple answer: To remove the flash drive, double click on the “Safely Remove Hardware” icon in the system tray (the icon circled in red in the image at right). From the next window, select “USB Mass Storage Device” and click the Stop button. Click OK in the confirmation window and you’ll get a message that it’s ok to unplug the device. It will automatically re-enable itself when you plug it back in.

You can also just unplug it while the computer is turned off, to prevent it from complaining when you restart. The reason it does that is that the computer tries to find it’s start-up (boot) files on removable devices before looking on the hard drive. When it finds the device but not the files, it throws an error. Seems silly to me; it should ask you if you want to boot from the hard drive instead. But there you are.

The longer, more complete answer: Devices like flash memory drives connect through an interface called USB (Universal Serial Bus). The first USB standard was introduced way back in 1995 and was intended to reduce the number of connectors (also called ports) needed on a typical PC and simplify the configuration of external hardware devices. It has succeeded so well at this that many new computers today use only USB connectors for everything except audio and video.

A Typical USB Hub

A modern desktop computer will have four to eight USB connectors built in. Some will be on the back panel and some on the front. External USB Hubs may be also be connected, further adding to the available connections. A maximum of 127 connections may be used by a single computer.

When a USB device is connected, it is automatically discovered by the USB host. If that device is supported, it is automatically configured and made available for use. Flash memory drives are almost always supported natively (i.e., support was built in to the computer’s operating system) but many other devices need to have special software called a driver installed before the device will be recognized. This is what happens when you pop in the installation CD that comes with new hardware. In most cases, the driver must be installed before you connect the device for the first time.

Driver installation is a one time process, although you will need to install one for each additional device (camera, printer, MP3 player, etc.) that you need to connect. Once this is done though, plug the device in and it will automagically start working.

If USB is so smart, I hear you asking, why do you have to go through this special process to unplug things? Well, don’t tell anyone you heard it from me, but a lot of the time, you don’t. You can just pull the plug and the sky will not fall. There’s a pretty good reason not to do this though, especially with devices that have data written to them, like flash drives and external hard drives. Here’s why: for greater efficiency, data is often held temporarily in RAM (non-permanent memory) and only written to permanent storage periodically. If you unplug your permanent storage before it’s received all of its data, bad things tend to happen. Going through the “Safely Remove Hardware” procedure ensures that all of your data has been moved onto the removable device and your great American novel remains intact (if unfinished).

Any other questions about USB or removable devices? Please leave a comment.

My icons on the desktop need to be arranged. I’d like to have them start down about an inch from the top. I can’t place them where I want as I use to. Can you give me a clue how to do it.

Right-click on the desktop

When I was cleaning up the desktop, I set the icons to auto-arrange, which places them in vertical rows, starting at the upper left corner of the desktop. To turn this off, right-click on any blank space on the desktop, select “Arrange Icons by”, and uncheck “Auto Arrange”. Your icons will then stay where ever you move them. If you leave “Align to Grid” checked, the icons will remain aligned with each other both horizontally and vertically.

Blogging was interrupted late last week by the urgent need to remove a virus from one of our computers. With the experience fresh in my mind, here are a few tips for the prevention and eradication of computer viruses.

Viruses are much easier to prevent than they are to cure. If you are a Mac or Linux user, you can sit back and gloat because viruses for these systems are so rare that they can almost be ignored altogether. But for us Windows users, these are the rules:

1. Keep your Windows Updates current. For most casual computer users, the best option is to leave Windows Update on full automatic. It’s extremely unlikely (though not impossible) that Microsoft will deliver a software upgrade that breaks your computer.
2. Install anti-virus (AV) software and keep its virus definition files current by setting it to auto-update (this is usually the default). Modern anti-virus software scans for many different types of malicious software, removing it from your system before it can do any harm. Several manufacturers provide basic anti-virus software free for personal use. I personally use the paid version of Avira AntiVir but I can recommend their free version as well.
3. Configure your AV software to alert you if there is a problem but never take any action automatically. I’ll explain why later.
4. Resist the temptation to install lots of downloaded software. If you must, learn how to scan it with your AV software before installing. Scanning a single file takes just a few seconds.
5. Think before opening email attachments. Do you trust the person who sent it to you? Do you trust the person who sent it to them? If you use an online mail service, like Gmail or Yahoo, they will pre-scan all attachments. And your anti-virus software is a last line of defense.

Arrgh! I got one anyway.

So, despite your best efforts, your system gets infected. The first indication that something is wrong is often simply odd behavior. Error messages begin to appear in programs that had been running fine or your browser starts loading sites by itself (usually sites that you really wish you didn’t know about). So, you load up your trusty AV program and scan everything in sight. This is a good idea and the right thing to do but don’t let it fix anything just yet.

Here’s the problem: malicious programs often write files to your computer in order to do their dirty work. Sometimes they modify existing files, files that your computer needs in order to run properly. If your AV program finds an infected system file and then moves or deletes it, your computer could stop functioning altogether. In technical terms, it has become a “brick”. The only option at this point is usually to wipe everything out and reinstall the operating system.

When doing a full system scan, your AV program should be run in “report only” mode. You need to know what malicious programs it finds, so that you can research the best way of getting rid of them. Many AV programs offer suggestions for fixing what they find or you can put the name of the virus into your favorite search engine and find lots more information. Once you’ve read a good explanation (or two) about how your particular virus behaves, you should have a better idea of what should be done to fix it. If you use the paid version of an AV program, you will also have access to their technical support system for help with diagnosing your problem.

If you are uncomfortable with proceeding on your own, print out a report from your AV program and take it and your computer to a reputable shop. The work you do up front will save them time (and you money) in getting your system clean again.

As for our infected computer, I spent 9 hours cleaning, moving and deleting over 800 files that had become infected. It was touch and go there for awhile but the system is now back to normal and scans cleanly. And if this computer had “bricked”, there was a full set of backups available. You have backups too, don’t you…?