What is the ideal way to prepare a USB thumb drive for updating LabQuest?

This information pertains to the original LabQuest.
If you have LabQuest 2, see LabQuest 2 FAQs and Troubleshooting

To prepare a USB thumb drive for updating LabQuest, do the following:

1. Start with a clean and validated USB drive. See TIL 1782: My USB drive is not recognized by LabQuest. What can I do?

2. Make sure that you applying an update that works with your LabQuest. Original LabQuest will only support software version numbers starting with a 1 (for example, LabQuest App 1.6). LabQuest 2 will only support software versions starting witha 2 (for example LabQuest App 2.1).

3. If you haven't already done so, double-click to unzip the .zip update file downloaded from:
http://www.vernier.com/labquest/updates/

4. Copy the contents of the unzipped folder to your USB drive. It is important to copy only the contents of the folder, and not the folder itself. Also, it is important to copy the contents directly to the "root" level of the USB drive, which is the top-most level in the file structure of the USB drive. In other words, do not put the contents into a new folder, or into any existing folder.

5. You should now see three items on the USB drive:
-- an updater file ending in .lqu
-- a folder named fw
-- a folder named fw_pre
Specifically, if you are using Windows and your USB drive is F:, then the location should be F:\fw.

On a Mac, it should be the first thing you see when you click on the drive.

If the items were not copied to the root level, you will see a folder name between the drive name and the item name (e.g., F:\LQv1.5.1-Update\fw). If this is the case, remove the items from the folder and put them at the root level of the USB drive.

RELATED:
TIL 2370: My LabQuest keeps rebooting or is stuck on the LabQuest logo screen.
TIL 2541: Downloading the LabQuest 1.5.2 update seems to work, but then I can't find the .lqa update file.