In this article we will show you how to make sure that USBflash drive or SDthe card was detected in the 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 are standard using Windows cannot be divided into several sections. 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 family of operating systems (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 to flash the controller of your 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 on a removable drive, try using 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 normal hard drive, which can be divided into sections that will be simultaneously available 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 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 will 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 choose new driver. 
We ignore the warning about missing digital signature drivers. 
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 flash drive icon has changed and is now displayed as a hard drive regular disk. 
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 installation disk Windows/Live CD and manually remove 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.
Introduction.
Most laptop owners sooner or later face the problem of running out of space. As a rule, laptops with screen sizes up to 15 inches inclusive do not have a free second slot for a 2.5-inch device. Therefore, owners are forced to think about either replacing the laptop itself or replacing its hard drive. After replacing the hard drive, there is always an old drive left, which can easily be turned into an external one USB drive for data transfer.
Naturally, you can purchase a mobile 2.5 inch hard drive and turn it into external storage. Fortunately, the cost of external drives allows this. For example, at the time of writing, for a 250 GB mobile hard drive they are asking $40, and for a 500 GB device from WD they are asking only $45.
We decide on the type of hard drive.
To be fair, it should be noted that an ordinary desktop 3.5-inch hard drive can also be turned into an external drive - you just can’t call it mobile. If you have an unused 2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drive, then first of all you need to decide on the type of its interface.
Today on the market there are the following types of interface: IDE (ATA) and various options SATA. As a rule, all SATA interfaces are backward compatible with each other, and we will not dwell on their variations. The situation is completely different between IDE and SATA interfaces, which are absolutely incompatible with each other and have different connectors.
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The figure shows two hard drives with different interfaces. Hard drives have a mobile format of 2.5 inches. On the left is a hard drive with a SATA interface, on the right is a hard drive with an IDE interface.
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In our hands was a 250 GB hard drive from Western Digital Scorpio Blue series with SATA interface. This drive has been used for a long time Acer laptop, but its capacity became insufficient, and it was replaced with a more capacious 500 GB solution.
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Despite long-term use, the performance of the hard drive did not cause any complaints, so it was decided to use it as an external mobile drive. To do this, we had to find an external case for it, which is what we did. External case AGESTAR for 2.5 inch mobile hard drive.
Computer hardware stores offer a wide variety of external cases for 2.5-inch hard drives. Their key difference is as follows:
- body material,
- type of external port (interface),
- cost.
As a rule, stores offer various cases with a USB 2.0 interface, a much smaller number of cases with an eSATA interface, and even fewer cases with a combination of USB 2.0&eSATA. Several cases with a modern USB 3.0 interface were found on sale, but their cost exceeded the cost of the hard drive itself, so we did not consider them.
The key difference between USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces is data transfer speed. Using the USB 2.0 interface allows for maximum compatibility, since these ports are available on all computers. A significant disadvantage of the USB 2.0 interface is its low data transfer speed, which will not allow you to unlock the full speed potential of your hard drive.
The eSATA port is more promising, but it is not widespread and is found only in expensive versions of motherboards, cases and laptops. The eSATA interface allows you to fully unleash the potential of SATA devices.
The material used can also be very different. In a simple case, it is plastic. In more expensive variations, an aluminum case with a leather cover is included.
The cost of external cases also varies. The cheapest option will cost the user $3, expensive versions will cost more than $100.
Buying a $100 case for a hard drive that costs less than $40 when new and is half the price once it's in use is, to say the least, wasteful. Therefore, for testing we were provided with a case costing a symbolic 3 dollars - AgeStar SUB2P1. Equipment and external inspection of AgeStar SUB2P1.
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We didn't expect any miracles from a device that costs three dollars, both in terms of equipment and in terms of performance. The device comes modestly packaged in a package. The front wall of the device is covered with a cardboard listing the key characteristics of the device. This is support for 2.5 inch mobile hard drives or solid state drives with SATA interface, USB 2.0 data transfer interface and various color options.
To be fair, it should be noted that our suppliers confirmed that they had not seen any other color for this case other than black.
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After opening the package, we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the kit included an instruction manual entirely in Russian.
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The case is completely made of plastic. There are paper stickers on the front wall indicating the model, which will be erased in any case, so we recommend immediately removing them from the surface of the device.
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The material used to make the case is soft black plastic, which does not smell of anything and is uniform throughout its structure.
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The covers of the device come off in two different directions, which ensures easy removal and installation of the hard drive in an external case.
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The two sides of the outer case are secured using a plastic latch made from the material of the case. Thanks to the recesses on the walls, the lids are securely fixed and spilling any glass of liquid, or leaving the device in the rain, is unlikely to lead to any problems.
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The device is designed for SATA hard drives, which we have repeatedly emphasized. Inside there are controllers with SATA ports for power and data transfer.
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Soldered on the side wall mini USB port for data transfer and power supply of the hard drive. There is no additional port to provide power to the drive, which may cause some problems for users. With a weak power supply that underestimates the voltage along the 5 volt line, you often have to deal with problems starting the hard drive. Typically, connecting the drive directly to a port on the motherboard rather than on the case system unit, the use of quality USB cable allows you to forget about this problem.
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Sellers of computer components often, as an advantage of this or that external case, talk about the presence of a USB data cable in the kit or offer to purchase it separately if it is not there. We advise our users not to pay attention to this, since a mini-USB-USB cable, as a rule, is available in almost every family and is often supplied with mobile phones. In our case, we successfully used a stale data cable from mobile phone Nokia.
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The next step was to install the hard drive into the case. This is done quite simply - by lightly pressing. The most important thing is to first correctly rotate the hard drive according to the power and SATA data ports located in the case.
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The absence of any protruding elements on the hard drive controller circuit allows you not to worry about its rear surface when transporting and using the device.
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Some users may argue that the plastic case does not provide adequate heat dissipation from the hard drive. Naturally, external cases made of aluminum cope with this task much more effectively. At the same time, we should not forget that mobile hard drives do not have such high power consumption that they suffer from overheating, and in laptops, as a rule, they are not additionally cooled with anything.
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After completing the assembly of the device, the stage of its testing and use begins. The supply of voltage to the device is accompanied by the glow of a blue LED, which also symbolizes the user about the process of data transfer. It should be noted that not everyone will have a smooth start when starting to work with the created external drive. If the hard drive has already been used, has been formatted and partitions have been created on it, you will not have any problems getting started. It works like a regular flash drive using the Plug&Play method. But those users who purchased a new hard drive without formatting and with no partitions will have a problem that will be associated with the absence of a drive letter in the “My Computer” tab.
To do this, you need to create partitions on the hard drive and format it. This can be done through various boot disks, but it’s better not to bother and do it in the Windows operating system itself.
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To do this, you need to go to the "Control Panel" through the "Start" section, then visit the "Administration" section. In this section, select “Computer Management”, where in the “Disk Management” tab you can partition and format the newly connected external drive. After creating partitions and formatting them, you will have access to them through the “My Computer” tab and you will be able to exchange with the drive as with a regular hard drive. Test configuration.
The assembled external drive was tested both on desktop computer, based on modern Core processor i7 and no less modern motherboard, and on a laptop Acer Aspire 7730 based on Core 2 Duo processor. It should be noted that the performance level on two different systems turned out to be comparable.
1. Data reading speed was tested in the HD Tach 3.0.4.0 program
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It is pleasant to note that the external drive we assembled shows a much higher level of performance than the WD My Passport Essential external hard drive we previously tested. Maximum speed data transfer was 34.3 Mb/s, and the average latency was about 17.9 ms.
2. Data reading speed in HD Tune 4.5.
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In the second synthetic test, we received data similar to the previous ones, which also turned out to be slightly better than that of the official external hard drive WD My Passport Essential.
3. Write speed of 64 MB files in HD Tune 4.5.
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Testing that is closer to practice is somewhat more valuable, by recording files of 64 MB in size. In this test, we received quite expected results, which were also limited only by the capabilities of the USB 2.0 interface.
Separately, I would like to note that throughout the entire testing, the temperature of the hard drive did not exceed 35 degrees Celsius, while a similar hard drive installed in the laptop had a temperature of about 43 degrees. Therefore, worrying about the operating conditions of the hard drive in this case on the part of users will be unnecessary.
4. Operating room loading speed Windows systems 7.
During practical testing of the loading speed of the Windows 7 operating system image, we received results similar to other external drives with a USB 2.0 interface.
5. Assessing the drive's performance in Windows environment 7.
We tested the performance of the external drive we assembled using the Windows 7 operating system. command line you need to call the command: “winsat disk -drive g -ran -write -count 10”, where “g” is the letter of the drive being tested in the system.
From the test results it is clear that the drive we assembled received a much higher rating than the factory solution WD My Passport Essential. 
Conclusion.
Based on the materials in this article, it is clear that any mobile hard drive can be turned into a good external drive without any hassle. Especially for testing, we asked for the cheapest external case, costing $3. Three dollars allows you to get an excellent external drive from a mobile hard drive, at least for data storage. Not to mention the fact that the same external case makes it easier to recover data from the hard drive of “dead” laptops.
Despite the fact that many people criticize AgeStar's products for their low quality, after many years of using them I have only a positive impression of them. First of all, it is at an affordable price. Defects occur in all manufacturers, although AgeStar has a slightly higher rate than Thermaltake. But the latter has no analogue to the presented external case for three dollars and with a 6-month warranty. We award AgeStar products with a gold medal of honor for their optimal performance/price ratio.
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 or others to view the flash drive, then you will not see it there, because there is a so-called descriptor Removable Media Bit (RMB), which is found in any flash drive and forces Windows to identify such drives as removable, and not as a local drive. 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 a special driver Hitachi Microdrive. 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 tab disk devices. Look for your flash drive and click right click mouse on it. In the window that opens, go to the tab "Intelligence", and select from the drop-down list "Path to device instance". In the field "Meaning" select the entire line and copy.
Let's move on to the driver. First, unzip it to any location, and then, using any notepad, open the . Find the item there and in the very last line, starting with the word USBSTOR We 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 tab "Driver" and press the button there "Update".
On Windows 7
Here we need to choose "Search for drivers on this computer" and select exactly the cfadisk.inf file that we changed.
On Windows XP
In this OS we choose "Install from a specified location", Then "Don't 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.
| INTERESTING: |
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 tab "Intelligence". 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.
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 the item in which 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 the Windows environment. If you insert a flash drive into another computer, it will be recognized there as a flash drive. That's all.
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 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.
A regular flash drive is perceived by the system as 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 on it operating system(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 depths) you may need to reconnect the flash drive. First, safely remove the USB storage device, and then reconnect it so that the OS recognizes it as an HDD.
For Windows x64 (64-bit)
- Download and unpack the archive.
- Connect the flash drive and run "Device Manager". To do this, just start typing the name of the utility in "Start".
Or right click on "Start" select "Device Manager".
- In the thread « Disk devices»
select the connected flash drive, double-click on it with the left mouse button - it will start "Properties".
- Switch to tab "Intelligence" and copy the property value "Equipment ID". You don’t need to copy everything, but up to the line USBSTOR\GenDisk. You can select lines by holding Ctrl on the keyboard and left-clicking on the desired lines.
An example in the screenshot below.
- File F2Dx1.inf from the downloaded archive you need to open it using Notepad. To do this, right-click on it and select "Open with...".
Select Notepad.
- Go to section:
You need to remove the first 4 lines from it (i.e. lines up to %attach_drv% = f2d_install,USBSTOR\GenDisk).
- Paste the value that was copied from "Device Manager", instead of the deleted text.
- Before each line you inserted, add:
%attach_drv% = f2d_install,
It should look like in the screenshot.
- Save the modified text document.
- Switch to "Device Manager", right-click on the flash drive and select "Update drivers...".
- Use the method "Search for drivers on this computer".
- Click on "Review" and indicate the location of the edited file F2Dx1.inf.
- Confirm your intentions by clicking the button "Continue installation".
- Once the installation is complete, open File Explorer and flash will appear as " Local disk(X:)” (X will be replaced by the letter assigned by the system).
For Windows x86 (32-bit)
After this, you can split the flash into partitions, install the operating system on it and boot from it, and also 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 steps above. 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.
Initially I thought of writing instructions, but in fact it turned out that it was a review of the use of the device. I did not correct it, because I think this option will also be useful to our dear readers.
How to make a homemade external HDD from a hard drive
Some time ago I got a 500GB laptop hard drive. But due to the lack of my own laptop, there was nowhere to install it, and just throwing such a volume “until better times” was a toad. And since the hard drive from a laptop is a box a little more than 5 centimeters wide and ~6-7 mm thick, a strong-willed decision was made, spending a minimum amount of money and time, to turn this drive into a kind of flash drive with a capacity of 500GB, putting it in special device called " External HDD pocket«.
To solve this problem, a pocket for a 2.5″ HDD was ordered from the online store SunBright (ME-945Q-TI) from a little-known Taiwanese company Welland priced at just 15 evergreen dollars.
Here are its characteristics:
- Supported HDD types: 2.5″ SATA I/II HDD
- Connecting to a computer: USB 2.0 at speeds up to 480 Mbps
- System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 or MAC OS 9.0 or higher
- One Touch Backup: For Windows in USB mode
- Power supply: via USB cable
- Size: 129 x 77 x 12 mm (L x W x H)
- Material of manufacture: Aluminum
For a little thing that costs “three kopecks” you don’t need more.