Daily Cup of Tech

U3 technology is a really awesome way to use your USB drive. It provides menus and the ability to install software quickly and easily on your USB drive.

But, (You knew there was one coming, didn’t you!) what if you want to use your USB drive as a simple file transport? Or you work in a locked down environment that will not allow the U3 software to complete its job? Now what?

I found myself in this situation last week when my boss asked me for a USB drive to take some work home with him. I was rather embarrassed when he came back to me thinking that I gave him a drive infected with a virus!

Fortunately, it is a relatively easy process to remove the U3 software. Simply download the U3 uninstaller and run it against your USB drive.

Caution! You will need to move all of your data off the USB drive before running the uninstaller because it will reformat your drive and all of your data will be lost! Also, you will not be able to reinstall the U3 software if you change your mind later!

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12 Responses to “Removing U3 from your USB Drive”

1. Jonathan Rothwell Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 11:00 am

   If admins weren’t so paranoid about watching their users’ every move, things would improve as far as U3 goes.

2. Mark Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 11:19 am

   Also, you will not be able to reinstall the U3 software if you change your mind later!
   I am not sure if this is true. I own a Cruzer Titanium from SanDisk with U3 support. On their website there is a “launchpadremoval.exe” to remove the U3 and a “LPintaller.exe” (LaunchPad Installer) to set up U3 again on my usb stick.

3. Sean Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   … you will not be able to reinstall the U3 software

   Glad to hear that they are not providing one way trips for U3 off of the memory sticks. This of course leads me to ask “What are the checks that U3 does to prevent installation on non U3 drive?” As far as I know it is just software auto-launching, so it *should* be able to run on *any* usb drive… right?

4. Kiltak Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

   So, it seems that you finally got a new job right?

5. Dan Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

   Just about 15 minutes ago I was thinking, this U3 stuff is really annoying. I go back to read some feeds and then this article pops up. Great timing.

6. fat mays Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 11:26 pm

   theres always portable apps if you want U3-esque stuff after youve uninstalled the preloaded junk.

7. Sameera Says:
   February 6th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

   Hey Tim,
   I hope you can help me with this, DCoT looks like a place where this kindda thing would get answered.
   I have a pretty old PC that has busted IDE ports and doesn’t support USB booting. I have a huge USB drive that I want to hook it up to this PC and use as a media center. The video and sound cards I have hooked up on it are pretty decent for the requirement. Only prob is that I need way to boot up this PC so that it would load WinXP from my USB drive. This should be pretty trivial with a Linux Live CD, but I’d like to keep my NTFS partitions on the drive as they are. What I would is for the CD to boot contain something like GRUB that will boot up XP on the USB. Can you help me achieve this. I’m totally lost on Linux

8. Kerry Liles Says:
   February 7th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

   I am pretty sure when I used the removal tool for U3, it asked if I wanted to retain the data on the USB stick (and copied it to a temp folder on the system). This was a few months back… I suppose the warning is fair enough anyway.

9. paranoid admin Says:
   February 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

   Jonathan - if users were not so intent on violating corporate policies, downloading and installing unauthorized programs, introducing viruses to systems via USB sticks, and using corporate resources for personal projects - maybe admins would not need to be so paranoid…..

10. Don H3 Says:
    February 12th, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    I got burned by believing it wasn’t a 1-way street. I’ll skip over the several counterfeit USB drives I got through ebay (Emprex, SanDisk, etc, “Officially Stamped” by the Chinese Government, but only 1/50th of the writable memory can actually be retrieved)
    //
    and just talk about the 2gb “Slide” Cruzer I recently got at walmart.
    //
    Nice drive: really is 2 gb. But when I removed the U3 stuff (just to see how it would work independently), I was never able to properly reload it. What I mean is that SanDisk does provide a reload program. But the reloaded U3 does *not* have all the features the U3 which was originally customized to “that” USB drive had. Not nice, Sandicks. // PS. there is software which can be used to “Verify” the retrievable size of a USB drive. I could not get Windozz to verify at all, and the first indication/revelation that my first USB carry-drive’s memory (above 500Mb) was IRRETRIEVABLE was when I discovered that my password file, and the backup I just made to my PC, were only 7 bytes long. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the Chinese Government is at war against the American consumer.
    //*

11. Egonitron Says:
    February 13th, 2008 at 12:53 pm

    I actually don’t like U3, I think Portable Apps is much much better.

12. Tony Brown Says:
    February 29th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

    I quite agree with Egonitron, I have a US Modular 8G Drive and I use DCot Menu in Combo with Portable Apps (PortableApps.com). I have used drives with U3 and and this is a much better way to go IMHO. U3 just seems to be slower and more complicated to use, not to mention the fact it can’t be used on all USB drives.

    Tony

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