Some modern USB Memory Sticks come with a software technology called U3 pre-installed.
U3 allows a flash drive to act as a container for applications by running special, proprietary Windows software when attached to a Windows PC. However, this software will not run on ETC products which accept USB memory sticks, such as Eos, Ion, Element, Congo, Congo Junior, Congo Kid, and Paradigm. U3 memory sticks may not work at all, or only work partially, on our products.
Which Memory Sticks have U3?
U3 is developed by SanDisk and it primarily SanDisk or rebranded SanDisk products that use it (Cruzer, Cruzer Micro).
Which Memory Sticks do not have U3?
There are many manufacturers of memory sticks, and it wouldn’t be practical to list them all. However manufacturers we have had good experience with include:
- Lexar Media (http://www.lexar.com/)
- Corsair (http://www.corsairmemory.com/)
- Kingston Memory (http://www.kingston.com/)
- Crucial Memory (http://www.crucial.com/)
- LG Electronics (http://www.lge.com/)
- Freecom (http://www.freecom.com/)
I have a memory stick with U3. Help!
You can uninstall the U3 software from your memory stick allowing it to run as a ‘regular’ memory stick and be used with ETC products. See: http://www.u3.com/support/default.aspx#CQ3 For details on how to remove U3.