Flash Drive FAQ

The information contained here, relates to the Flash Drive Duplication section and services offered within it.

  1. Data Pre-Loading
  2. Autorun
  3. File Lock / Dual Zone
  4. Unique Naming

Data Preloading

We can preload presentations, product catalogues or any other promotional materials you desire. Whether it be to supply important data to your clients or just to reinforce your company message, preloading your custom USB flash drives with data is an excellent concept. A Flash Drive is a purely a data storage device so we can preload any type of data. Here are some examples of files our customers have asked us to preload in the past:

  • PowerPoint presentations
  • Your product catalogue
  • PDF brochures
  • Pictures
  • Software
  • Your company website
  • Videos
  • Electronic Voucher

How to get your data to us?

  • Send by email : if the data is below 20MB in size you can upload it to our servers. Please request FTP access
  • Provide link to download: If the data is too big to email (e.g. more than 20MB) then you can provide us a link from which we can download it if you have access to your own web space. The link should be to a single zip folder containing the data. Some customers prefer to give us login details to an ftp location from which to download the data - this is acceptable.
  • Don't have any web space? We can provide you some instructions on how to upload your data to our ftp server.
  • Send by post: You can post us the data on a CD, DVD or USB flash drive. Please send the data here:


    W.E.B.S Ltd
    Queensbury House
    Harborough Road
    Maidwel
    Northants
    NN6 9JA

What format should the data be in?

If you are sending the data by email, ftp or providing a download link, then data should be provided as one .zip folder. After receipt, we will unzip the folder and add the resulting contents onto each flash drive. This way the data will retain the same folder structure the sender intended. If you are sending the data by post on a CD, DVD or flash drive then there is no need to zip the data.

AutoRun Function

Custom USB flash drives supplied by W.E.B.S Ltd are unique in that they support a function know as 'AutoRun', something which most standard off the shelf flash drives do not offer. This feature allows your preloaded data such as a presentation to launch automatically when the user plugs the custom USB flash drive it into their computer. The AutoRun works by the addition of an extra file to the root of the customer USB Flash Drive called autorun.inf. If your require us to preload your data, then we are happy to set the AutoRun function up for you. Alternatively we can provide information on how to take advantage of this feature yourself should you want to set it up in-house.

Why use AutoRun?

Example: When using custom USB flash drives as a marketing tool to distribute a number of PDFs then use the AutoRun function to make sure the most important document loads instantly when your customer plugs in the flash drive. Some companies like to AutoRun a Flash or HTML menu to aid navigation around the various documents stored on the flash drive.

Things to note:

  • The standard PC autorun.inf will not work on Macs.
  • Some companies prevent flash drives and CDs from Auto-Running on company computers by making changes to each computer's registry as a security precaution (our experience that this is very rare).
  • When some users plug in their custom USB flash drive, security software may ask them whether they want to allow the drive to AutoRun. They just need to click 'Yes' and the AutoRun will launch as normal.

File Lock / Dual Zone

If you want to protect your data from deletion by the final user then you require a Dual Zone flash drive. This special flash drive unites the flexibility of a standard USB Flash Drive with the Read only nature of a CD-ROM. When you insert the flash drive into your USB port, 2 drive icons will appear: One is for the Read Only CD-ROM zone and the other for a standard removable drive (user area) . It allows us the possibility of 'hard coding' data to the CD-ROM zone while still giving users the ability to use the 'Flash drive zone' as a regular flash drive

Individual Naming

Companies usually require all their custom flash drives to be branded in an identical manner. Though why not take advantage of the additional level of personalisation that we can provide? Our individual naming service is especially popular among schools and universities.

Custom flash drives have 2 sides which can be branded differently . This means you can have your logo engraved or printed on one side of all the flash drives while have the unique engraving on the reverse. The picture above illustrates some example of this. Engraved names are a popular choice to prevent mix-ups at the workplace or in schools, though the unique text can be anything from email addresses, phone numbers or serial numbers.

  • Having discussed your requirement with a sales representative, please email one complete spreadsheet containing the unique text to them if you wish to proceed with an order.
  • The actual personalisation can only be done by engraving as this process if more flexible than colour printing.



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