USB Memory Key / Pen drives
I've used pen drives or usb keys quite alot to allow me to create live boot images so I can use *nix on systems that I'm only using temporally. Usb Drives are so much nicer than using Live CD's or DVD's you don't have the constant whirling of the player. While doing ths I've found a few tools and sites to helphe achive this.
Because there are limitations with the pen drives such as reduced lifespan from alot of write 'n' re-write to the device plus speed and limited to 8GB w/o spending sully money! So, I got a protable 2.5" HDD that's powered via the USB. I did have a huge 1/2 TB Western Digital that I really like but it's afull sized 3.5" and requires a power suply which can be a faff to cary around! This new little one means I can use it any where and it's especially useful with laptops.
The greaet thing with these portab devices is they will appear on almost all nix installers. I'd hzard a guess that Microsofts Installers would recognize them too. Thimakes it so easy to insall an OS to te device and setup the boot loader on it you're able to create a brand new clean env. without in anyway effecting the internal configuration. A great way to play with linuxBSD and others.
Fdisk for USB drives
This tool is care of HP and allows you to fdisk USB pen drives and format them.
download[1.9 mb]