Permanently Locked Data on USB Flash Drives

A flash drive is just some flash memory in a plastic package. Flash memories typically have a locking feature. To activate it you write a certain code to a certain address. The trick is finding out what the code is. You would need to know whose chips are in the device. You might ask the company who you're buying them from.

So your saying the code will vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, depending on the chip?

So If I were to buy 500 of brand X and 250 of brand Y, I would likely need two different sets of code to lock the data?

DOH!

Generally speaking, yes.

I guess I have to ask, why bother? In the old days people passed out cassette tapes with no concern that someone might just record over them.

Well.. It's going to have the band name printed on the side. They should be buying it for the music and not just the drive, but I suppose, as long as they buy it, thats all my job entails eh?

I'll have to ponder it for a while... I was just hoping it would be an easy one.

Even if they just carry around the drive for their own use, it's still advertising, right?

Yeah, you do have a point.... You know, your absolutely right, why would I need to lock it in the drive? they bought the tracks, they can load them onto as many computers/ipods as they want from the drive, and delete when finished, retaining as many copies as they wish... It all about making the sale the night of the show.

Yep, your right.

Thank you!

Makes my life that much easier.

Any written lock can be breached. A hardware lock (such as provided with some flash-drives can be circumvented by bridge along the circuit.

Flash isn't initially designed to lock the data, because improper USB connection might erase the data altogether. Instead it was designed as an EEPROM device, where erasing is simply re-writing blanks.

A proper device for your given requirement is called PROM, which isn't designed to be re-written in any way. Alas, PROMs can become corrupt by burning the remaining gates beyond the written sectors. By some misfortune or mistake of course.

The only EMP-safe medium on the planet is called ROM. You can have someone burn ROMs for you, or have the equipment to do it yourself.

Of course, a USB protocol will have to burnt on top of the raw data, if you want it to interface to the popular port.

Google for "writing ROM", or "Mask-ROM vendors" - or something like that

Well, the locking feature I think i'll do without, but, any Ideas on the Auto-run??

Auto-run is part of Windows and DVD players default setting. You have to specifically order it to avoid auto-run - if you so choose.

Selling music written inside a cheap flash as a bonus is somewhat popular here in Israel.' during the last two years. None of those is sold as locked.

This company I was looking at offerers to code in an auto-run feature into the flash drive to open an application, play a song/video, or open a specific web page when the drive is inserted into the computer. they manage (or at least advertise that they do) to make it work... but how??

This is the site I'm referring to.

A software routine to auto-run may mean that once you inserted the device to the USB port, you are unable to order the system to avoid it's self-starting auto-run, sort of forcing the system to auto-run in all or most circumstances.

Auto launching a web-page is more intriguing - it sounds like something able to annoy the normal user - if it's not presented as a clear-cut choice

You are onto a very good idea.

Cassettes had tabs you broke to prevent recording onto them, but you simply put some tape over the break out to record over them if you wanted.

Actually one of the best things is the Mini Disc.

It didn't work out except for professionals, same similar to how BetaMax was a Professional grade tape medium, while VHS with longer run on one tape was good enough.

The fragility of CDs makes a vinyl record look good, almost.

I early had a Teac stand alone that I ran into with feeds from many tapes, and the Sony Mini disc recorder, that made "Masters" from which I could make copies.

Many of the copies no longer play, and now only the Masters will play, but not make copies.

I did do radio DJ stuff at WQFS and did like the CDs for telling me how long any particular track might run. It was a college station, so I could play most whatever I wanted.

You are on a good track.

To the best of my memory, when I insert a USB thumb drive into my computer at home, it tries to autorun. I say at home, because USB drives are no longer allowed to be used on any DoD computer and many companies (e.g., Lockheed Martin) have the same policy. As a matter of fact, many military sites will not even allow them to be brought onto the property. This did not go over too well with those deployed war-fighters who were told they couldn't bring their Ipods (or similar devices) on the base. This whole mess started last year. I only mention this because, it could cut into your customer base.

USB drives for music is a great idea! I wish you luck with it.

Here is an article about a start-up company currently doing the same thing. Maybe you can glean a few ideas or give them some healthy competition.

RV, check out this thread. Looks to be some answers here:

LINK

I did the following Google search to find that:

auto-run USB flash drive

Looks like there are a number of ways it can be done. One of the ways involved making the computer think the USB drive is a CD, the auto-run feature in Windows was intended to work with CD's. Sounds like it's possible, and I wouldn't give up on the locking feature either, if it's something you want. I'd bet next weeks paycheck there's a way to do that as well, provided you're willing to dig for the information. Good luck, and keep jamming!

Tom

Hi RVZ,

Here is an answer to part of your request:

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1. Setting up a Flash Drive to Run Automatically30 Oct 2008 ... One of the nice features of CD-ROM and DVD drives is the ability to automatically run a disk when it's inserted into the drive. USB flash ...
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2. Bring the power of portable software to your USB flash drive ...If you do not want to upgrade the U3 Launchpad or the flash drive ... other programs to autorun from a CD-ROM (e.g. Installation programs that automatically run when ... If there's an application you would like to see available for U3, ...
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3. Setting Up a Flash Drive to Run Automatically15 Oct 2008 ... Setting Up a Flash Drive to Run Automatically. ... A program on the root directory of the flash drive is run by creating a text file (with a text editing program like Notepad) ... Flash drives are able to do everything CD-ROMs and DVDs can do, ... 4 Ways to Make Your Computer Run Faster Than Ever! ...
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4. Installation/FromUSBStick - Community Ubuntu Documentation2 Aug 2009 ... A few seconds after plugging in the USB drive run the dmesg .... Now you can boot from the USB drive and install Ubuntu like as if you had booted from the Desktop CD. ... Copy the contents of the Ubuntu CD to your flash drive (make ... If you are using Linux and it does not get mounted automatically ...
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5. Automatically run a media file from USB stick? - dslreports.com7 posts - 3 authors - Last post: 11 JanWhat type of "File system" does it indicate in its "Properties" box (right ... 2) The Context Menu is just like a CD drive. ... Regardless, then "U3" is the way the OP needs to go to make his Flash drive AutoRun on insertion. ... then ANY USB Flash drive could be made to automatically RUN a program? ...
   www.dslreports.com/.../r21707776-Automatically-run-a-media-file-from-USB-stick - Similar -

Thank you for the leads... seems to be fairly easy to do the auto-run feature.

Thanks!

Hi RVZ,

If possible and even if you have to buy it, get a Flash Drive that you asked for a quote on. Test record and playback on several computers. I have tried several cheap drives and not all work, and not all actually record properly.

You do not want to buy a few hundred or more only to get complaints they work on only half the machines?.......

I got my Flash Drives direct from Hong Kong, all worked to some degree, but a lot did not seem to have as much space as they were supposed to.

Just a thought; you may want to record a few for Mac, as the Windows, (recorded for windows) may not play back properly?

Good luck and please let me know what happens.

Take care.

PS. Me being nosey............<<<.......... Can you tell me roughly how many Drives you are going to use? You do not have to answer I just wondered.

Well those are definitely good concerns, and I share them with you. I'm thinking about starting with 250 drives to start (about a $1500 investment), and see how that goes. The particular company I have had quote me (so far the only) this morning, has a 100% money back lifetime guarantee on all their products, which is hard to argue with. But I have yet to read any fine print. If the first 250 go as I hope they will, I'll probably be looking at a order of 500 the next time.

Keep in mind that unless the data is effectively locked, an improper disconnection from the USB port (there is a software routine to ensure safe disconnection) might erase the data, or corrupt the data-integrity, which in practical terms means that the drive has to be formatted and re-written, hopefully not in the hands of your clients

I've decided that locking the data would not be a good decision. As long as the drive was stable, from the point the exited concert goer buys it, to the point they load it onto their computer, my job has been accomplished. What they do with the drive is all up to them (It's basically a free flash drive, instead of a junk CD which just creates a bunch of plastic garbage). As long as the data gets to their IPod/computer etc I'll be happy. From then On they can use the drive for whatever they want, and the band name/logo will remain on the drive as advertisement (and a reminder to the consumer of the wonderful show they saw that made them want the music). I've spoken with my biggest/best band/client about the idea, and they are very excited about it, and are looking at finding the funds to make the initial investment (I'm not a band manager, and don't have any ties to any money transfers, I'm just the engineer, and occasionally do a bit of marketing)

Basically, from what I see, People just take the CD home, rip the music to I-Tunes, and discard the actual disk into the CD graveyard... This idea will hopefully reduce the garbage, and offer a far Superior product at a similar cost to the consumer.

Hi Yuval,

I know sort of what you mean. I tried to format four of mine and they would not format at all. This may have been why some corrupted?

Take care.

Frequently when clicking on the remove hardware icon, I get the "cannot remove, in use" message even though there are no files open, the whole directory closed, and another device/folder selected. Mulitple clicking usually results in the same message. Even going into "File Manager" and clicking remove/eject gets the same error message. How do you get the durn thing out of the machine if you don't just pull it out and hope for the best?

You turn off (at Start/Turn Off Computer) the PC while the device is still in the port.

Once the PC is finally off, you take the device off the port, and when you turn the PC on again, and after Windows Desktop finished loading, you insert the device back into the slot.

Initiation of the device happens when you insert it into the slot, while Windows is up and running.

- - - -

In general, USB Flash devices have relatively slow reaction-time (well, much slower than HDDs - where it's called "Access-Time"), and when are ordered to do several things at once (even copying several directories full of objects at once) the sometimes get stuck. The best remedy is to imply one order at-a-time, and see each action through, usually when the device's LED-indicator stops blinking.

- - - -

The faster the reaction-time of the device, the less likely this will happen. Usually very cheap Flash devices tend to hang (get stuck) more.

I was hoping for a secret method that would be much quicker than powering off my computer; bummer. This occurs not only with my flash memory but with my external HDs (non-flash RAM) as well. It only happens about 50% of the time but is still a royal pain in the butt.

Well, USB is not yet the Holy Grail everyone was waiting for. It's only good for certain things, and it's not yet proven ideal for storage devices

I have had this problem with my digital camera, and also find it a pain in the butt. I had moved to doing Restart, but forgot last photo post attempt and this time pictures were lost, and now the camera puts new photos anywhere in time on the card.

Hopefully when I need a new card, things will reorder.

I do think that these small cards and flash drives have great potential for replacing CDs or DVDs, though it is funny that once things get small, they need large packaging still for both entertainment value, as was the case with Record Album Covers, and their art and story and posters, and then the shoplifter problem.

Flash Memory is great. It is a non-moving storage device, and as such, it is very reliable and robust (impact resistant, ideal for military and critical systems use).

It is that USB interface, which is crap for storage.

As a matter of fact, Flash is becoming the standard for reliable, fast, completely silent storage device, in the form of SSD (Solid-State Drive), using SATA and IDE interface schemes.

Hi RVZ,

As I have said just get ten to try from that same company.

"A lifetime warranty" means >>> ZERO <<<

I have seen all kinds of things which have not worked or have broken and when the 'lifetime warranty' was quoted, the items were said to have stopped working after what was roughly their estimates lifetime!

The price sounds good though. And I wish you luck!

Take care.

. How can I write data to a portion of the flash drive and lock it so it cannot be deleted, while allowing the rest of the unused space to be altered freely?

You purposely corrupt the file and then it becomes locked; it will display but can not be deleted, or you may partition the drive.

How can I make the flash drive auto-run as if it were a CD?

It's beyond your control how the customer sets up their machine, many disable auto-run.

Do you need a feature that would limit the number of times the media will run?

"...Do you need a feature that would limit the number of times the media will run?..."

- I do

Use Microsoft tech-net in reference to "embedded" and Windows pro media

Thanks. I'll look into it

ScanDisk flash drives come with security software to lock your data. To autorun I am not sure what you mean but you can put your iTunes or custom recorded music on the flash and access it through WMP or Apple iTunes you may have to change your library path. But one thing about flash drives they can fail so back it up to HD. I am with you I think CDs are obsolete with flash drives being so cheap. I have (3) 8GB on my USB ports for special storage of schematics and manuals but I do backup using Ghost.

ive been pondering with this too, but my product is an ebook in a usb. if i leave it unlock the money thirsty pirate in my country will be happy coz they dont need to scan through the paper based book.

i heard theres a hardware lock but it costs significantly a lot?

since pdf's owner password print restriction can be removed, i was thinking is there a way to make usb as a more effective media for books and all

what is the base in usb that can be used to completely lock it i wonder

So you wanna lock it eh? Simple, create a file and then purposely corrupt it; just remember what you changed...

Or you can buy a license and set it up to your liking.