You are on page 1of 3

About Us Contact Us Newsletter

Home Applications Suite Forums Development Support Search

Home » Forums » General Forums » General Discussion


Applications
Accessibility Getting a flash drive recognised as Local not
Development
Education
Removable
Submitted by fergus on May 29, 2007 - 10:04am
Games
Graphics & Pictures
A flash drive is conventionally recognised in Windows as Removable, but there are
Internet
Music & Video advantages to getting it recognised as Local, like the built in hard drive and external
Office IDE drives.
Operating Systems
Utilities >> there is a thread around here describing that problem ...

Couldn't find it unfortunately: so I'm sorry if I end up repeating well-known stuff, or --


Vote for PortableApps.com
worse -- stealing somebody else's thunder.

>> Windows only supports one mounted partition on a flash-drive.


>> Linux doesn't have this limitation so once again it's M$ deciding
>> for you what you may or may not do with your hardware.
>> If only the flash-drive manufacturers would stop setting the RMB
>> to "removable" ...

You can get Windows to recognise a flash drive as Local rather than Removable, and
then the OS will also recognise all the partitions created on that drive (up to 4) and not
Please vote for us in the
Community Choice Awards just the first. The key is to impose a driver upgrade on your flash hardware.

1. Visit www.xpefiles.com
What is a portable app?
2. Go to Hitachi Microdrive
Find out on the What is a
portable app? page. 3. Download XPfildrvr1224.zip
4. Extract cfadisk.sys and cfadisk.inf

User login and place them anywhere you like. The Desktop will do.
Username: *
Don't touch the binary file cfadisk.sys; but you need to edit the text file cfadisk.inf so
that certain key lines in it match your flash drive, and not the Hitachi Microdrive it was
Password: * built for. So, as preparation for the editing step, identify your flash drive correctly:

5. Start -> Programs -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management


Log in 6. Choose Device Manager in Left panel
Create new account 7. Choose Disk drives in Right panel
Request new password 8. Identify your flash drive from the list (eg "Ut161 USB2Flash USB Device")

Remember this shorthand name. Leave the Computer management window open if you
Sponsored Links
like: you are going to return to it. Now you need the longhand "technical" name (key
name) for your flash drive. To do this you will access the Windows registry. Be careful!
You don't want to edit the registry, just copy a phrase from it.

9. Start -> Run -> type "regedit" and press OK


10. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> ControlSet001 -> ENUM -> USBSTOR
11. Right-click on the line that matches the shortname for your flash drive
11. Right-click on the line that matches the shortname for your flash drive
12. Choose "Copy Key Name".

That's all you need to do, so now

13. Close the registry

as it's a dangerous thing to leave open. The longkeyname is in your clipboard. Now
comes the editing bit:

14. Open cfadisk.inf with an editor like Notepad

(Probably double-clicking on it will start Notepad by default, depending on how your File
Types are set up.)

15. Find 3+3+2 = 8 lines under [cfadisk_device] and delete any 7 of them
16. Select everything from IDE\ to end-of-line inclusive
(ie after "cfadisk_install,")
17. Right-click Paste

to insert the longkeyname. Actually its longer than you want in this context, so

18. Edit the middle chunk to read "..cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven.."

and then Save and Exit. (By the way the line you have edited is a single line. If it's got
wrapped into two, edit it back into one.) You now have the text file cfadisk.inf in the
required format. Go back to the Computer Management window and

19. Right-click on the device shortname under Disk drives in the Right panel
20. Choose Update driver
21. Choose Install from a list or specific location and press Next
22. Select "Don't search. I will choose the driver to install" and press Next
23. Press Have Disk (even though you haven't)
24. Browse to your recently edited cfadisk.inf
(colocated with cfadisk.sys of course)
25. Press Open then OK

Ignore the objection that "This driver is not digitally signed!" and

26. Press Next then Yes then Finish

and there you are. Close everything up and open My Computer. You'll find that your
flash drive is identified as a Local disk and not a Removable disk, with all the benefits
thus conferred. Specifically, you can create up to 4 partitions on your flash drive which
are all visible to, and recognised by, Windows.

If something goes wrong, or if you later regret this step, you can recover the original
hardware architecture by right-clicking on the device shortname in Computer
Management and choosing Properties -> Driver -> Roll back driver.

Fergus

‹ PortableFirefox blocked! Can you close PAM from a batch


file/command line? ›
» Login or register to post comments ShareThis
( categories: General Discussion )

or you just could...


sergentsiler (Homepage) - May 29, 2007 - 10:22am

format the drive in NTFS and boot the comp with the drive in it. i had a problem with
that once lost about 13 megs off of my drive due to a lost partition that was locked.

(TM)sergentsilerlogo:<(TM(sergentsiler)
http://www.sergentsiler.freespaces.com/

I Am We Todd Ed, I Am We Todd Ed, I Am Sofa King We Todd Ed. ;)

Login or register to post comments

Thanks!!
Ed_P - May 29, 2007 - 1:55pm

Thanks Fergus, a good write up.

A minor shortcoming to the approach is it is only effective on the pc in which you


install the filter. If you use the device on other pcs, they will only see one
partition. For a discussion on making the drive itself indicate it is "Fixed" check
out this thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?
s=&showtopic=19768&view=findpost&...

As has been noted numerous times before NTFS is not recommended for USB
flash drives that need to last for an extended time. It also prevents the drive
from being bootable.

BTW The link to the XPfildrvr1224.zip posting is:


http://www.xpefiles.com/viewtopic.php?t=92

Ed

Ed

Login or register to post comments

©2005-2009 | Privacy Policy | Developed by Rare Ideas, LLC


Designed by [THIRDSHIFT] and Rare Ideas, LLC | Powered by Drupal

You might also like