Converting a flash drive to a hard drive. How to make a flash drive from a hard drive

2 Mini NAS on the router

3 Flash drive instead of password

4 Flash drive for emergencies

As if installing an OS is not something complicated, and my opinion is that it is enough to be friends with the computer and have two more hands in addition to your head - one right and the other left. To install the OS on your computer, you need or.

But what to do if there is neither one nor the other, it doesn’t work optical drive, or do you have a netbook? After thinking a little, I remembered that I have an external USB pocket for an HDD and a free old 2.5' HDD too. In general, if you have a pocket hard drive, you can make it bootable.

There are utilities for this purpose that can be used to do this, but I decided to use the standard ones using Windows.

There are a lot of descriptions and videos on the Internet, but, unfortunately, there is one problematic point that the authors for some reason omit. Well, okay, I'll start in order.

Preparing an external HDD

Before working with a disk, be sure to transfer and save the necessary information from this disk to another medium.

I will carry out all settings using standard Windows 8.1 tools. There may be some differences from previous Windows releases, but if there are any, they are not significant.

First of all, I want to note what to do external HDD bootable, much more convenient. I divided the disk into two partitions, one contains the Windows distribution, the other partition is for my needs.

1. We connect the USB pocket and go to Disk Management.

Attention! All data on the disk will be destroyed!

If you have Windows 8 installed on your PC,1 right-click: Start/Disk Management;

If Windows is more earlier versions, open the Computer Management console: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / expand Storage Devices / left click Disk Management.

See screenshot:

2. Choose external HDD drive. Be extremely careful; if you select another drive by mistake, all information will be destroyed.

In my case, this is Disk 1. As you can see in the screenshot, the disk is divided into two volumes (partitions):

3. Delete disk partitions:

4. Create new disk partitions. One for the distribution, the second will remain for your needs:

Right-click on a free disk field and select the command in the context menu Create a simple volume:

5. In the Create Wizard window that appears simple volume, press the button Further:

Specify the volume size as 4404 megabytes and click Next. Please note that the size is indicated in megabytes. And since 1 gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes, then 1024 × 4.3 = 4403.2 megabytes we get for the distribution section (mine weighs 4.18 GB, for example);

In this dialog, you need to format the new partition (FAT 32), click Further then Ready:

6. After this, you need to make the created partition active (don't forget because the computer will boot from this partition), for this:

Right click the mouse and select the command in the context menu Make the section active.

We respond to the confirmation request YES.

The external HDD looks like this:

7. In the same order, we format the second partition on the disk, preferably in NTFS, but do not make it active.

Copying Windows to the active partition of an external HDD

Copy Windows distribution booting an external HDD is quite simple and easy.

From boot DVD:

Open the installation DVD in Explorer, select all folders and files, and copy to active section external HDD;

From ISO image A:

By and large, an ISO image is a kind of archive. So you can open it using any archiver. You can also open the ISO image via Total Commander or Daemon Tools. Well, if you have Windows 8 or 8.1 installed on your PC, then open it with Explorer. Select all folders and files and copy them to the active partition of the external HDD;

That's it, your external HDD can act as bootable media. Just reboot and set USB HDD as boot priority in BIOS (depending on BIOS type).

• When you turn on the laptop, press F2, to ;
• Go to the tab Boot;
• IN Boot Priority order install USB HDD;
• Click F10, and then OK.

If it doesn’t work, then look at the article.

Save the changes and proceed.

As we can see from the text, preparing an external HDD for Windows installations, is quite simple. And my description will not be complete if I do not talk about one problem that for some reason is rarely written about on the Internet.

Making the hard drive partition active

When I divided the hard drive into two volumes, for some reason unknown to me, not a single partition of the disk could be made active. This function was not available in the context menu.

The active partition is the partition from which the computer boots.

There are two ways to make a section active:

1. Using the Computer Management console. We have already considered this method, but, unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the Make Partition Active command may not be available. The solution to this problem is also not difficult. Remember how to prepare a bootable USB flash drive from the Command Line.
2. Using the Command Line, through the utility diskpart. The second method is a little more complicated, but more effective. You just need to do all the operations carefully and slowly.

Setting the active partition using the command line

1. Connect external USB HDD;

2. Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/ Command line . Right-click and select Run as administrator.

3. In the window that opens, write the command diskpart and press the button Enter. An invitation line to work with the utility will appear – DISKPART>;

4. Enter the command list disk and press the button Enter. You will see all the disks installed on your computer;

5. We select the disk with which we will work. To do this, enter the command select disk 0, where “0” is the disk number in the list, i.e. for my external drive there will be a team select disk 1. Click the button Enter, the message Disk 1 selected will appear;

6. Next, you need to find all partitions on the selected disk. Enter the command list partition and press the button Enter.

7. We select the section we will work with. Enter the command select partition 1, where 1 is the section number in the list, i.e. for the section that we make active. Click Enter, a message will appear Section 1 selected.

8. Mark the selected partition as active, to do this, enter the command active. Click the button Enter, a message will appear DiskPart: Partition marked as active.

That's all. Good luck.

Also on the site:

How to make an external USB HDD (hard drive) bootable using standard Windows tools? updated: February 6, 2018 by: admin

I have long wanted to write this article, I think it will be very interesting to you. I received a question from a friend about how to make a hard drive from a flash drive. So, we will analyze two options: changing the flash drive to 64 bit Windows and on 86-bit.

If you choose to use programs such as Acronis Disk Director or others to look at a flash drive, then you won’t see it there, because there is a so-called Removable Media Bit (RMB) descriptor, which is in any flash drive and forces Windows to identify such drives as removable, and not as local disk. To fix this issue, we just need to delete this descriptor.

Why did I say there will be two options? Because on systems of different capacity this operation will be carried out differently. This will be quite simple to do, so let's get started.

How to make a flash drive a hard drive on Windows x86?

To do this work, we need to download the special Hitachi Microdrive driver. You can download it from here.

Now we find out the device instance code. In this case, we need to go to the device manager, there go to the disk devices tab. Look for your flash drive and right-click on it. In the window that opens, go to the “Details” tab, and select “Path to device instance” from the drop-down list. In the “Value” field, select the entire line and copy.

Let's move on to the driver. First, unpack it to any location, and then, using any notepad, open the cfadisk.inf file. Find the item there and in the very last line, starting with the word USBSTOR, replace everything with what we copied in the device manager. Here's how it will work out:

At the end of the line, after REV_ХХХ, you need to remove a small tail:

After everything is done, save the file.

Now go to the device manager again and open the properties of our flash drive again. Let's go to the "Driver" tab and click the "Update" button.

On Windows 7

Here we need to select “Search for drivers on this computer” and select exactly the cfadisk.inf file that we changed.

On Windows XP

In this OS, we select “Install from a specified location”, then “Do not search” and “Install from disk”. Again select the cfadisk.inf file as the driver.

After this, your flash drive should be recognized by the system as a hard drive.

How to make a flash drive a hard drive on Windows x64?

So, in this case, we download this archive.

Now go to Device Manager, open the properties of our flash drive and go to the “Information” tab. There, from the drop-down list you need to select “Equipment ID”. In the “Value” field you will need to copy all lines except USBSTOR\GenDisk and GenDisk.

We open the F2Dx1.inf file that we downloaded with regular notepad. In general, it is advisable to use Notepad++. Having opened the file, we find a point where we delete the first 5 lines, and then simply replace them with what we copied. The main thing is that each line begins with the phrase: %attach_drv% = f2d_install.

In addition, I want to say that the flash drive will be detected as a hard drive only on the system in which you performed this operation, since we just changed the driver in Windows environment. If you insert a flash drive into another computer, it will be recognized there as a flash drive. That's all.

Http://computerinfo.ru/kak-sdelat-fleshku-zhestkim-diskom/http://computerinfo.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/drive.jpghttp://computerinfo.ru/wp-content/ uploads/2016/05/drive-150x150.jpg2016-05-02T12:18:50+00:00EvilSin225Windowshow to make a flash drive into a hard drive, make a flash drive into a hard drive, flash drive like a hard drive I have long wanted to write this article, I think it will be very interesting to you . I received a question from a friend about how to make a hard drive from a flash drive. So, we will analyze two options: changing the flash drive to 64-bit Windows and to 86-bit. If you decide to use programs such as Acronis Disk Director or others,...EvilSin225Andrey Terekhov Computer Technologies

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How to turn a USB flash drive into a hard drive

Many users may have noticed that any programmer who comes to fix system-related problems has the operating system with him directly on a flash drive. This trick is very useful, because in case of any problem with the system or hard drive, the user will always be able to restore access to the computer and understand what the problem with the computer is. In this case, not everyone wants to have the system on a computer, since it is much easier to carry a small system disk With additional files. Therefore, anyone should know how to make a hard drive from a flash drive.

But how to turn a flash drive into a hard drive? It would seem that such a process should be difficult and resource-intensive, but in fact everything is done quite simply, and the size and “age” of the flash drive does not matter. The main condition for a flash drive is that it works properly. Also, not only a USB flash drive, but also an SD card is suitable for this role; the process of changing properties is identical.

At the same time, it is worth knowing that multipartition should not be applied to such external media, since many operating systems only support the first partition in non-HDD disks. HDDs are non-removable media that are installed in a computer. You can remove them, but it takes a lot of time and effort, so people use cards and external drives to make the whole process of transferring information or an operating system directly with them easier.

First, you need to make Windows recognize the USB flash drive as a non-removable device. In this case, any flash card standardly has the opposite parameter, then you need to start making changes. Some people don’t think at all about the security of their equipment, so they simply modify the flash drive. But this method is dangerous because many flash drives simply cannot be changed to the selected parameter, which is why they will break and will have to be taken to a service center. It is much easier and safer to replace the response from the device with the desired result. A special driver is installed for this. Flash drive instead hard drive on Windows 7 will work the same as with any other operating system.

First step

Before turning a flash drive into a hard drive, the device must be connected to the computer, and then determine the type of flash drive.

Open Media Manager. You can find it using the “Run” button, enter “diskmgmt.msc” here and press “Enter”. Now you can see what type of drive it is, removable or non-removable.

Second option

You can also view the device type by opening the Volumes tab in the properties of the flash drive.

Third option

You can also enter the command diskpart.

So, now the user knows whether the flash drive is a removable or non-removable device in this case.

Second step

If the device is defined as “non-removable”, then it can already be used as a hard drive. Otherwise, before using a flash drive instead of a hard drive, its type must be changed to “non-removable”. For this, a special filter driver is used, which can easily change the incoming information, changing it to the necessary one. One of the most common and simple filters is the Hitachi Microdrive driver. Thus, the user does not invade the microclimate of the flash drive, while simply deceiving his system by giving it a false answer.

After the media becomes non-removable, the computer will consider it a full-fledged hard drive that can be divided into partitions, each of which will function simultaneously. The main thing at this point is to download a program that is suitable for the bit size of your operating system.

Third stage

After the user has been able to deceive the computer, the device code can be identified. You can find the code in the “Details”, “Device Instance Path” tab.

As a result, it is necessary to copy the information; it will then be manipulated in the Hitachi Microdrive program. When copying, you must remove all information after the second “\”.

On a 64 bit system

Now you need to find the cfadisk file in the Hitachi Microdrive folder, where we find the cfadisk_device and cfadisk_device.NTamd64 sections.

In the sections, instead of information after “\”, we insert the code of our device.

On the system 32 bits

The process is similar, only in the file for the 32-bit version you need to find the “cfadisk_device” section.

Here you need to replace “DISK&VEN_&PROD_USB_DISK_2.0&REV_P” with the device code.

If you want to set your own name for the device, then you need to replace “Microdrive_devdesc” with the desired name, for example “USB_hard”.

Fourth stage

The last stage is replacing drivers. On 64-bit operating systems Before this action you need to disable the check digital signature driver so that it does not update itself due to third-party intervention.

You need to open the “Drivers” => “Update Drivers” tab. Next is the folder with the Hitachi Microdrive driver. This driver is selected, all that remains is to ignore the message about the absence of a digital signature, then restart the computer and see the result of the work. The drive has become non-removable.

The driver is removed using the “Update drivers” button.

Here's how to easily make a hard drive from a flash drive. This procedure can be carried out by anyone if you follow the instructions, and the computer and the storage system cannot be damaged at all. If you use a high-quality, voluminous external drive with good performance, then there is no question whether a flash drive can be used instead of a hard drive. In this case, it will cope with the task no worse than hard drives.

NastroyVse.ru

Replaceable USB drive as a hard drive in Windows

In this article we will show how to make a USB flash drive or SD card recognized in the system as a regular local hard drive. You might ask, why is this necessary? The fact is that Windows by default defines all flash drives and memory cards as removable drives, which cannot be divided into several partitions using Windows standards. And even if the flash drive is divided into two or more sections using third party utilities(in the same Linux), then only the first of them will be available in the Windows OS. Those. Windows supports normal operation with multi-partitions only for HDD drives, which are defined in the system as local (i.e. non-removable).

Let's connect to any free port computer USB flash drive, then open the disk management manager (diskmgmt.msc) and make sure that its type is defined in the system as Removable.

You can also see the device type on the Volumes tab in the disk properties (as we see here Type: Removable).

Or using the diskpart command:

List volume

Filter driver for Hitachi Microdrive flash drives

In order for a USB flash drive or SD card to be recognized in the system as a hard drive, we need a special filter driver that allows us to modify the data transmitted through the system stack of the current device driver. We will use a filter driver for USB flash drives from Hitachi (Hitachi Microdrive driver), which at the OS driver level allows you to change the type of flash drive device from removable to fixed (USB-ZIP -> USB-HDD). Thanks to the use of this driver, you can hide from the system that the connected device is removable. As a result, the system will consider that it is working with a regular hard drive, which can be divided into partitions that will be simultaneously accessible in the system.

Hitachi Microdrive driver archives:

You need to download the driver version for your system according to its bit capacity. Both archives have the same structure and consist of two files:

• cfadisk.inf – installation file with driver settings
• cfadisk.sys - Hitachi driver file

The next stage is identifying the device code of our flash drive. To do this, in the disk properties on the Details tab, in the Device Instance Path parameter, select and copy (Ctrl+C) the device instance code.

In our example it would be:

USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000\0123456789ABCDEF&0

Let's assume we plan to install the driver on a 64-bit system. Using any test editor, open the cfadisk.inf file for editing. We are interested in the cfadisk_device and cfadisk_device.NTamd64 sections.

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\DiskTS64GCF400______________________________20101008 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\DiskTS64GCF400______________________________20101008

We change the value DiskTS64GCF400______________________________20101008 to the code of our device.

We get:

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000

Save the file.

If the driver is installed on a 32-bit system, you need to download the recommended archive, unpack it and open the cfadisk.inf file for editing. Let's find the section:

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_LEXAR&Prod_JD_LIGHTNING_II&Rev_1100 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_JetFlash&Prod_TS1GJF110&Rev_0.00 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\ DISK&VEN_&PROD_USB_DISK_2.0&REV_P

Then we change the data in the last line, indicating the code of the instance of our flash drive, i.e. in our example we get:

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_LEXAR&Prod_JD_LIGHTNING_II&Rev_1100 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_JetFlash&Prod_TS1GJF110&Rev_0.00 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\ Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000

Installing the Hitachi Microdrive driver instead of the native USB drive driver

All that remains is to replace the driver with the USB flash drive you are using.

Open the Drivers tab and click the Update Drivers button.

Let's indicate the folder to the directory into which the downloaded archive with the Hitachi driver is unpacked:

Let's select a new driver.

We ignore the warning about the missing driver digital signature.

All that remains is to restart the computer and, by opening the disk manager, make sure that our flash drive is now recognized as a regular hard drive (Type: Basic), and the Hitachi driver is used as the driver.

By opening Explorer, you can also make sure that the icon of the flash drive has changed; it is now displayed as a hard drive, a regular drive.

Now you can work with this flash drive like a regular HDD: create partitions, specify the active partition, create dynamic disks, install software that does not work from flash drives, etc.

Important. On others Windows computers Without this driver, the second partition of the device will not be accessible.

How to remove Hitachi Microdrive driver

To remove the Hitachi Microdrive driver, open the disk properties and on the Driver tab, click the Update Driver button - the system will install the native driver itself.

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How to make a flash drive a hard drive

How to make a flash drive a hard drive on Windows x86

Users who prefer to work with different operating systems know that it takes a lot of time to install at least two operating systems on one computer.

If you want to cover much more operating systems than a couple or three, then a simple and banal flash drive can come to your aid.

What does it mean? In simple words, you create an operating system on a USB drive and can work with it directly without installing it directly on the computer.

This is much easier than splitting the hard drive into many parts and installing all sorts of Linux, Ubuntu and Open Solaris on each of them for a long and painful time.

That is why the question “How to make a flash drive a hard drive?” is a popular question among computer geeks.

It's not that difficult for experienced users, but if you are well versed in programs, then it will not be difficult for you to go through this process.

Driver for creating a hard drive from a flash drive

First of all, you should get a special driver on your computer, which will make your work much easier. It's called Hitachi Microdrive. Download here...

After downloading and installing it, go to the device instance code that you are about to find out.

To do this, open Device Manager and find the “Disk Devices” tab.

Find your USB device and open context menu.

In the “Details” tab, open the drop-down list and click on “Path to device instance”.

• Pay attention to the “Value” field, where you need to select the entire line and copy it.

After the work has been done, you will need the help of a driver, with the help of which we make the flash drive a hard drive.

If this is your first time working with it, then first unzip it to any folder, then use Notepad and open the cfadisk.inf file.

You will need the item, in the last line replace the text you previously selected, all starting with the word USBSTOR.

At the end of the line, remove the so-called tail that comes after REV_ХХХ.

Open the device manager and find your flash drive there, and in the “Driver” tab, update it.

How to make a flash drive a hard drive in Windows 7

In this case, you should click “Search for drivers on this computer” and select the file that you previously modified.

Namely cfadisk.inf.

How to make a flash drive a Windows XP hard drive

Here you need to select “Install from a specified location”, then “Do not search” and finally click on the “Install disk” button.

The driver will again be the file that was modified.

Now the flash drive is detected by your system as nothing other than a hard drive!

However, you should remember that the flash drive will be a hard drive exclusively on your computer and exclusively in the operating system in which you worked with it.

This is due to the fact that you only changed the driver in Windows OS, but not the structure of the USB device as a whole.

Therefore, if you need to open the hard drive on another PC or laptop, you will have to repeat the entire procedure again. Otherwise, you will just have a regular flash drive.

kevin-seoshnik.ru

How to make a hard drive from a flash drive

When there is not enough free space on your hard drive and you cannot free it up, you have to consider various options to increase space for storing new files and data. One of the simplest and available ways is to use a flash drive as a hard drive. Many people have medium-sized flash drives, so they can be freely used as an additional drive connected to a computer or laptop via USB.

Creating a hard drive from a flash drive

A regular flash drive is perceived by the system as an external portable device. But it can easily be turned into a drive so that Windows will see another hard drive connected. In the future, you can install an operating system on it (not necessarily Windows, you can choose among “lighter” options, for example, based on Linux) and perform all the same actions that you do with a regular disk.

So let's move on to the transformation process USB Flash to external HDD.

In some cases, after completing all of the following steps (for both Windows bit depth) you may need to reconnect the flash drive. First, safely remove the USB storage device, and then plug it back in so that the OS recognizes it as an HDD.

For Windows x64 (64-bit)

For Windows x86 (32-bit)

After this, you can split the flash into partitions, install the operating system on it and boot from it, as well as do other actions, as with a regular hard drive.

Please note that this will only work on the system on which you have completed all the above steps. This is due to the fact that the driver responsible for recognizing the connected drive has been replaced.

If you want to run a flash drive as an HDD on other PCs, then you need to have the edited driver file with you, and then install it through the “Device Manager” in the same way as indicated in the article.

We are glad that we were able to help you solve the problem.

Many users may have noticed that any programmer who comes to fix problems related to the system carries with him. This trick is very useful, because in case of any problem with the system or hard drive, the user will always be able to restore access to the computer and understand what the problem with the computer is. In this case, not everyone wants to have the system on their computer, since it is much easier to carry around a small system disk with additional files. Therefore, anyone should know how to make a hard drive from a flash drive.

But how to turn a flash drive into a hard drive? It would seem that such a process should be difficult and resource-intensive, but in fact everything is done quite simply, and the size and “age” of the flash drive does not matter. The main condition for a flash drive is that it works properly. Also, not only a USB flash drive, but also an SD card is suitable for this role; the process of changing properties is identical.

It is worth knowing that multi-partitioning should not be applied to such external media, since many operating systems support only the first partition in disks that are not HDD-type. HDDs are non-removable media that are installed in a computer. You can remove them, but it takes a lot of time and effort, so people use cards and external drives to make the whole process of transferring information or an operating system directly with them easier.

First, you need to make Windows recognize the USB flash drive as a non-removable device. In this case, any flash card standardly has the opposite parameter, then you need to start making changes. Some people don’t think at all about the security of their equipment, so they simply modify the flash drive. But this method is dangerous because many flash drives simply cannot be changed to the selected parameter, which is why they will break and will have to be taken to a service center. It is much easier and safer to replace the response from the device with the desired result. A special driver is installed for this. A flash drive instead of a hard drive on Windows 7 will work the same as with any other operating system.

Before turning a flash drive into a hard drive, the device must be connected to the computer, and then determine the type of flash drive.

First option

Open Media Manager. You can find it using the “Run” button, enter “diskmgmt.msc” here and press “Enter”. Now you can see what type of drive it is, removable or non-removable.

Second option

You can also view the device type by opening the Volumes tab in the properties of the flash drive.

Third option

You can also enter the command diskpart.

So, now the user knows whether the flash drive is a removable or non-removable device in this case.

Second step

If the device is defined as “non-removable”, then it can already be used as a hard drive. Otherwise, before using a flash drive instead of a hard drive, its type must be changed to “non-removable”. For this, a special filter driver is used, which can easily change the incoming information, changing it to the necessary one. One of the most common and simple filters is the Hitachi Microdrive driver. Thus, the user does not invade the microclimate of the flash drive, while simply deceiving his system by giving it a false answer.

After the media becomes non-removable, the computer will consider it a full-fledged hard drive, which can be divided into partitions, each of which will function simultaneously. The main thing at this point is to download a program that is suitable for the bit size of your operating system.

Third stage

After the user has been able to deceive the computer, the device code can be identified. You can find the code in the “Details”, “Device Instance Path” tab.

As a result, it is necessary to copy the information; it will then be manipulated in the Hitachi Microdrive program. When copying, you must remove all information after the second “\”.

On a 64 bit system

Now you need to find the cfadisk file in the Hitachi Microdrive folder, where we find the cfadisk_device and cfadisk_device.NTamd64 sections.

In the sections, instead of information after “\”, we insert the code of our device.

On the system 32 bits

The process is similar, only in the file for the 32-bit version you need to find the “cfadisk_device” section.

Here you need to replace “DISK&VEN_&PROD_USB_DISK_2.0&REV_P” with the device code.

If you want to set your own name for the device, then you need to replace “Microdrive_devdesc” with the desired name, for example “USB_hard”.

Fourth stage

The last stage is replacing drivers. On 64-bit operating systems, before this action, you must disable driver digital signature verification so that it does not update on its own due to third-party intervention.

You need to open the “Drivers” => “Update Drivers” tab. Next is the folder with the Hitachi Microdrive driver. This driver is selected, all that remains is to ignore the message about the absence of a digital signature, then restart the computer and see the result of the work. The drive has become non-removable.

The driver is removed using the “Update drivers” button.

Here's how to easily make a hard drive from a flash drive. This procedure can be carried out by anyone if you follow the instructions, and the computer and the storage system cannot be damaged at all. If you use a high-quality, voluminous external drive with good performance, then there is no question whether a flash drive can be used instead of a hard drive. In this case, it will cope with the task no worse than hard drives.

In this article we will show you how to make sure that USBflash drive or SDthe map was determined in Windows system like a regular local hard drive. You might ask, why is this necessary? The fact is that Windows by default defines USB flash drives and memory cards as removable drives, which cannot be divided into several partitions using Windows standards. And even if you split the flash drive into two or more partitions using third-party utilities (in the same Linux), then only the first of them will be available in the Windows OS (by the way, built-in appeared in Windows 10 1703). Those. Windows supports normal operation with multi-partitions only for HDD drives, which are defined in the system as local (i.e. non-removable).

RMB bit and USB media

Windows operating systems recognize USB flash drives as removable/removable devices due to the presence of a special bit descriptor on each device R.M.B.(removablemediabit) . If, when polling a connected device through the StorageDeviceProperty function, the system determines that RMB=1, it concludes that the connected device is a removable drive. Thus, in order to convert a USB flash drive into a hard drive from the system's point of view, it is enough to modify this descriptor. This can be done directly (which is quite risky due to differences in hardware implementations specific devices, and not always possible), or indirectly, by replacing the answer USB devices using a special driver that allows you to filter information in the device response.

Advice. Some manufacturers produce special utilities for flashing the controller of their flash drives. First of all, try to find such a utility and/or firmware on the manufacturer’s website. This is the most correct way. If you don’t find such a utility, follow the recommendations from this article.

Connect a USB flash drive to any free port on your computer, then open Disk Management Manager ( diskmgmt.msc) and make sure that its type is defined in the system as Removable(Removable device) .

You can also see the device type on the Volumes tab in the disk properties (as we see here Type: Removable).

Or using the diskpart command:

List volume

In this article we will look at two ways to change the RMB bit on a USB flash drive - by using the Hitachi filter driver (changes are made only at the driver level on a specific computer) and changing the bit in the controller firmware using the BootIt utility from Lexar (more universal method, but there are a number of restrictions and are not applicable to all models of flash drives and SD cards). Although both of these methods are quite old and I originally tested them on Windows 7, they continue to be relevant and work equally well in modern Windows 10.

Lexar BootIt utility

Recently I came across a rather interesting utility - LexarBootIt. This is a free, portable program that can change the RMB of a removable drive to make a removable USB device fixed (or vice versa). Even though the Lexar BootIt utility is designed for Lexar devices (Micron, Crucial), it can also work with flash drives from other manufacturers. BootIt utility supports everything Windows versions, starting with Windows XP and ending with Windows 10.

Important. The utility is guaranteed to work for Lexar drives. Judging by the reviews, the “Flip removable bit” function does not work on fast USB 3.0 flash drives. In addition, when flashing the controller, you will lose the warranty on the flash drive and can make it inoperable.

You can download BootIt on the Lexar website (lexar_usb_tool) or from our website ().

• Run BootIt.exe with administrator rights
• Select your flash drive from the list of devices
• Click on the button Flip Removable Bit
• Save your changes by clicking OK.

Reconnect the device and use Device Manager to make sure that its type has changed from Removable to Basic.

If the BootIt utility did not help change the RMB bit to removable storage, try the following method, based on the Hitachi Microdrive filter driver

Filter driver for Hitachi Microdrive flash drives

In order for a USB flash drive or SD card to be recognized in the system as a hard drive, we need a special filter driver that allows us to modify the data transmitted through the system stack of the current device driver. We will use a filter driver for USB flash drives from Hitachi ( Hitachi Microdrive driver), which at the OS driver level allows you to change the type of flash drive device from removable to fixed (USB-ZIP -> USB-HDD). Thanks to the use of this driver, you can hide from the system that the connected device is removable. As a result, the system will consider that it is working with a regular hard drive, which can be divided into partitions that will be simultaneously accessible in the system.

Archives with Hitachi Microdrive driver:

• 32 bit systems - (3.0 KB)
• Hitachi Microdrive version for 64 bit systems - (3.8 KB)

You need to download the driver version for your system according to its bit capacity. Both archives have the same structure and consist of two files:

• cfadisk.inf– installation file with driver settings
• cfadisk.sys- Hitachi driver file

The next stage is identifying the device code of our flash drive. To do this, in the disk properties on the tab Details in the parameter Device Instance Path select and copy ( Ctrl+C) device instance code.

In our example it would be:

USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000\0123456789ABCDEF&0

Let's say we plan to install the driver on 64 bit system. Using any test editor, open the file for editing cfadisk.inf. We are interested in the cfadisk_device and cfadisk_device.NTamd64 sections.

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\DiskTS64GCF400______________________________20101008 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\DiskTS64GCF400______________________________20101008

We change the value DiskTS64GCF400______________________________20101008 to the code of our device.

Important! In the device instance code, it is necessary to discard the part after the second “\” (in our example we discard 0123456789ABCDEF&0).

We get:

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000

Save the file.

If the driver is installed on a 32 bit system, you need to download the recommended archive, unpack it and open the cfadisk.inf file for editing. Let's find a section :

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_LEXAR&Prod_JD_LIGHTNING_II&Rev_1100 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_JetFlash&Prod_TS1GJF110&Rev_0.00 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\ DISK&VEN_&PROD_USB_DISK_2.0&REV_P

Then we change the data in the last line, indicating the code of the instance of our flash drive, i.e. in our example we get:

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_LEXAR&Prod_JD_LIGHTNING_II&Rev_1100 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_JetFlash&Prod_TS1GJF110&Rev_0.00 %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\ Disk&Ven_Linux&Prod_File-CD_Gadget&Rev_0000

Advice. If you want the USB flash drive to appear with a specific name in the device manager, you need to edit the value of the Microdrive_devdesc variable, for example like this:
Microdrive_devdesc = "Transcend 64GB DIY SSD"

Installing the Hitachi Microdrive driver instead of the native USB drive driver

All that remains is to replace the driver used by the USB flash drive.

Important! If USB driver Hitachi Microdrive is installed on a 64-bit system, because... There is no digital signature for this driver, you will have to either.

Open the Drivers tab and click the button Update Drivers.

Let's indicate the folder to the directory into which the downloaded archive with the Hitachi driver is unpacked:

Let's select a new driver.

We ignore the warning about the missing driver digital signature.

Advice. In Windows 10 and Windows 8, when installing the driver, the following error appears:

Windows found drivers for this device, but an error occurred when trying to install the drivers.
Hitachi Microdrive
Third party inf does not contain signature information

To disable driver digital signature verification, run the following commands:

bcdedit.exe /set nointegritychecks ON
bcdedit.exe /set TESTSIGNING ON

Restart your computer and try to install the driver again.

All that remains is to restart the computer and, by opening the disk manager, make sure that your flash drive is now recognized as a regular hard drive ( Type: Basic), and the Hitachi driver is used as the driver.

By opening Explorer, you can also make sure that the icon of the flash drive has changed; it is now displayed as a hard drive, a regular drive.

Now you can work with this flash drive like a regular HDD: create partitions, specify the active partition, create dynamic disks, install software that does not work from flash drives, etc.

Important. On other Windows computers without this driver, the second partition of the device will not be available.

To remove the Hitachi Microdrive driver, open the disk properties and on the Driver tab, click the Update Driver button - the system will install the native driver itself.

Advice. If after installing the Hitachi driver the system stops booting with BSOD, you need to boot the computer from the installation Windows disk/Live CD and manually delete the following files:

• cfadisk.sys in the %windir%\System32\drivers directory
• Directory "cfadisk.inf_amd64_..." from %windir%\System32\DriverStore\FileRepositoty

Restart your computer

You need to understand that this solution will only work on the system on which the appropriate driver is installed.