Make Windows see any USB flash drive as local disk | Lancelhoff.com http://www.lancelhoff.com/2008/06/19/make-windows-see-any-usb-flash...

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Make Windows see any USB flash drive as local

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How to make Windows XP see any USB flash drive as a local disk rather than a removable disk: By default
a USB flash drive is detected by Windows XP as a removable disk. This poses a couple of limitations. You
cannot setup or create multiple partitions on a removable disk from Windows XP. Moreover, Windows is
unable to display multiple partitions on the USB flash drive if it is detected as a removable disk. However, we
can address this problem by creating our own custom driver for the USB device forcing Windows XP to
detect the USB flash drive as a local disk. Luckily the base driver is already available for compact flash cards
and can be easily modified for our USB flash drive usage.

This process will essentially make Windows detect your USB Stick as USB hard drive which can then be
partitioned within Windows.

Prerequisites:

USB_LocalDisk.zip
Windows XP PC
USB Flash drive
Notepad ++ (or a text editor with line numbers)

How to make Windows detect a flash drive as a local disk:

1. From a running Windows XP system, Insert your USB flash drive

2. Download and install Notepad ++ on your PC
3. Download USB_LocalDisk.zip and extract. A USB_localDisk folder is created
4. From the USB_LocalDisk folder, right click cfadisk.inf and open the file with notepad ++
5. Navigate to line 26 of the cfadisk.inf file. We are going to be editing the section labeled
device_instance_id_goes_here. So leave this file open!
6. From your Windows Desktop, click Start-> Run and type devmgmt.msc and click Ok
7. Under Disk drives, locate and double click your "USB Flash Device":

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8. From the USB Device Properties window that opens, click the Details tab. Select the entry listed
under the Device Instance ID Window and then press ctrl+c to copy the text:

9. Now, on line 26 of the cfadisk.inf file, after the comma, delete the text:
device_instance_id_goes_here and then press ctrl+v to paste the text from step 8 into the section. For
example, my line 26 reads as follows:

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Once finished save the changes!

10. Now from the Windows Desktop, click Start-> Run and type devmgmt.msc and click Ok to get to the
Device Manager again.
11. Under Disk drives, locate and right click your "USB Flash Device" and select the option to Update
Driver:

12. Select No, not at this time when prompted to Connect to Windows Update to search for software
13. Next, select the option to Install from a list or specified location (Advanced)
14. Next, select Don't search. I will choose the driver to install
15. Next choose Have Disk and then browse to your USB_LocalDisk folder. Select cfadisk.inf and click
Open. Then click Ok.
16. Next, you will get a warning that the driver is not digitally signed. Simply click Next. Continue to click
Yes to the "Update driver warning":

17. That's it. Now your USB flash drive should be detected as a local disk rather than removable. Allowing
your to multipartition the device from within Windows XP.

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Note: Simply rollback the driver if you ever want or need to make your USB flash drive detected by
Windows as removable media again.

Related Simple Solutions

Multi partition a USB flash drive in Windows

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Windows Tips and Tricks. Tagged under:
multipartition a flashdrive, multiple flashdrive partitions, removable media as local disk, USB flash drive as local disk

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