U3 News

Got some good and some bad news for you.

First the good news.
U3 is officialy dead. It does not get developed or upgraded anymore and since end of 2009, no U3 USB-Sticks get produced anymore.

Now the bad news.
U3 is officialy dead. It does not get developed or upgraded anymore and since end of 2009, no U3 USB-Sticks get produced anymore.

I have one U3 and never used it's abilities (It was only VERY expensive).
It came from the time when I did not have had success with booting from USB (That was my 15 years old BIOS).
And the clever salesman told me that I have to use an U3 ...

Now I use it new formatted - as a stupid usual pen.
(After copying an U3-Restore batch anywhere. But I think that in some time I do not find the "Anywhere" any more ...)

Peter

Never got into the U3 deal anyways.

I also forget pendisks everywhere or get them broke due to usage so I try to get 'em as cheap as possible..

Imo, U3 was kinda good idea but not really thought through.
Instead of giving people something widely useful, they were to keen on securing their market.

My ideal USB-Stick would be:
- fast to read and write in all file sizes
- could be split into two virtual devices, which both could be configured to show up as anything the user desires and each one would have it's own write protect switch.

The closest i'd ever got to that Dream-Stick, is a U3 Cruzer Micro, with write protected virtual CD drive and a writable virtual FDD.

It came from the time when I did not have had success with booting from USB (That was my 15 years old BIOS).
And the clever salesman told me that I have to use an U3 ...

That wasn't a clever sales man, just a stupid one.
Had this told in shops too. Turned always out to be the same problem. People didn't knew the difference between bootable and readable and U3 sticks indeed have a slight advantage in reading. There is no need to preinstall a driver on Win9x machines as the virtual CD contains a Win9x USB driver.

Imo, U3 was kinda good idea but not really thought through.
Instead of giving people something widely useful, they were to keen on securing their market.

My ideal USB-Stick would be:
- fast to read and write in all file sizes
- could be split into two virtual devices, which both could be configured to show up as anything the user desires and each one would have it's own write protect switch.

The closest i'd ever got to that Dream-Stick, is a U3 Cruzer Micro, with write protected virtual CD drive and a writable virtual FDD.

You should have a look at the Mass Production Tool, CBM2093_UMPTool_v3.3.9.1_091127,
for the Chipsbank 2093 controller ..
The write-protect switch is harder, people got confused so they stopped connecting the wires to the controller .
If you can find the schematics for your controller you can make it yourself ..
Almost ALL the new UFD-controllers can be a ATAPI and/or ATA device, a few even support 3 LUN's,
one as CD-ROM, 2 as "Fixed" and/or "removable" .
If you choose "Fixed" you could have up to 8 primary partitions across two separate storage-devices on a single flash-drive ..
Plus the CD-ROM

i want to know why. is this because it is criticized by so many people for uninstall issues or others, or it is just because people expect too much from it and it can not make improvements?

well for those who have interests in virtual operating system or portable app, maybe you can try Prayaya V3.

i am using it now. i am sure it is more powerful and friendly than U3, first, you can directly install any apps on it and make them portable, second, you can install V3 on any removable devices, and uninstall it is as easy as you uninstall an app from Windows.

Good luck.