In this article we’ll show you how to make a USB flash drive or an SD card to be identified in the Windows as a common local hard disk. Probably, you may ask why it’s necessary? The matter is that by default Windows identifies all the USB flash drives and SD cards as removable drives that can’t be split into several partitions with the built-in Windows tools. And even if you partition the USB flash drive into two or more volumes using third-party utilities (say, in Linux), only the first partition will be available in Windows. Windows supports multiple partitions only for hard disk drives identified as local (i.e.

Getting a flash drive recognised as Local not Removable. The key is to impose a driver upgrade on your flash hardware. Extract cfadisk.sys and cfadisk.inf. Hitachi Microdrive driver - cfadisk.sys is a filter driver that allows windows to see your USB Flash Drive as a Fixed Disk.This helps you to partition and access the various partitions of your USB.

Contents: • • • RMB bit and USB drives Windows recognizes USB flash drives as removable devices due to the presence of a special descriptor bit RMB (removable media bit) on each of the devices. If the system determines that RMB=1 when polling the connected device using StorageDeviceProperty function, it concludes that this device is a removable drive. Thus, in order to convert the USB-flash to the hard disk it is enough to modify this descriptor.

You can do this directly (which is quite risky because of the differences in the device-specific hardware implementations, and not always possible), or indirectly – by replacing the response of a USB device using a special driver, which allows to filter out the information in the device response. Some manufacturers release special utilities for flashing the controller of USB drives. First of all, try to find such utility and / or firmware on the manufacturer’s website. This is the most correct way. If this utility does not exist, follow the recommendations in this article. Connect the USB flash drive to any available port on the computer, then open the Disk Management console ( diskmgmt.msc) and make sure that it is determined by the system as Removable.

Also you can view the type of device in the Volumes tab in the properties of the drive (as we see here Type: Removable). 1 list volume list volume In this article we’ll take look at two ways to change the RMB bit on a USB stick: using the Hitachi filter driver (changes are made only at a specific computer on the driver level) and changing the removable bit in the controller firmware using the BootIt utility from Lexar (more universal way, but there is a number of restrictions and is not applicable to all models of USB flash drives and SD cards). Although both of these methods are quite old and I originally tested them in Windows 7, they continue to be relevant and work equally well in modern Windows 10. Lexar BootIt Utility: Flip Removable Bit Recently I got a pretty interesting tool – Lexar BootIt. This is a free portable program that can change the RMB of a removable drive and make a removable USB device fixed (or vice versa).

Despite the fact that the utility Lexar BootIt is developed only for Lexar devices (Micron, Crucial), it can work with flash drives from other manufacturers. The BootIt utility supports all versions of Windows, starting from Windows XP and finishing with Windows 10. The utility is guaranteed to work with Lexar flash 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 can lose the warranty on the USB flash drive and the process can make it unworkable. You can download BootIt from Lexar website • Run exe elevated • Select your USB flash from the list of devices • Press the button Flip Removable Bit • Save changes by clicking OK. Unplug and reconnect the device.

Using Device Manager, make sure that its type has changed from Removable to Basic. In the event that the BootIt utility did not help to change the RMB bit on a removable drive, try the following method based on the Hitachi Microdrive filter driver. Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver for USB Flash Drives To mount a USB flash drive or an SD card as a hard drive, you need a special filter driver, which allows you to modify data sent via the system stack of the current device driver. We will use a filter driver for USB flash drives by Hitachi ( Hitachi Microdrive driver), which allows to change the USB device type from removable to fixed (USB-ZIP -> USB-HDD) at the OS driver level.

Using this driver, you can hide from the system that the connected device is removable. As a result, the system assumes that it works with a usual hard disk, which can be split into several partitions available in the system simultaneously. Hitachi Microdrive Driver Files: • Hitachi Microdrive version for 32-bit systems – • Hitachi Microdrive version for 64-bit systems – You need to download the version of the driver according to the bitness of your system. Both archives have identical structure and consist of two files: • cfadisk.inf – is the installation file with driver settings • cfadisk.sys – is a Hitachi driver file The next step is to identify the device ID of your USB / SD flash drive.

This unique feature allows a user to keep a constant eye on target systems and immediately identify whether intervention is required. The view also provides key visual information such as OS type, network address, WiFi signal strength and battery life (where appropriate), the current logged-on user and the computer name for easy identification. The size of these thumbnails can be adjusted to suit. In addition, the user can mouse over a specific thumbnail for an expanded view of each selected PC.