Question portable drive, flash drive, last powered/connected dates?

[brannsiu]

Hi. I have a couple of portable hard drives and USB flash drives. Is it possible to find out the exact (or approximated) dates and times they were last connected or powered?

 

[BFG-9000]

I don't think anything writes a modified or created date unless a file or folder has changed, but if they were last connected to a Windows system perhaps you could try using Linux to look at the properties inside System Volume Information on the drive for a last accessed date. Don't plug it into a Windows system or it would obviously get updated to today.

In Linux this is the atime you would check with ls -lu

 

[brannsiu]

I don't think anything writes a modified or created date unless a file or folder has changed, but if they were last connected to a Windows system perhaps you could try using Linux to look at the properties inside System Volume Information on the drive for a last accessed date. Don't plug it into a Windows system or it would obviously get updated to today.

In Linux this is the atime you would check with ls -lu

Did you mean something like what I have just found today by a quick check on Google? There is saying that you can turn something into read-only mode so that the last accessed dates of all files will be frozen? Or is it another story?

 

[brannsiu]

When we connect a USB device of any kind into a computer, except for what we know we have done to it, is there anything that may write to or write from the device that an average user may not know?

For example, when we connect a flash drive to a computer, could there be anything about the computer, e.g. serial number of motherboard or other hardware, Windows serial number or name of the user, or anything identifying, will be logged somewhere in the flash drive? Vice versa, could there be anything about the flash drive that will be logged somewhere in the computer?

 

[Lutfij]

Stick to one thread, please, unless you want spaghetti brains.