How a portable hard drive works. A removable USB storage device like a hard drive in Windows. Configuring Hitachi Microdrive Utility

Unfortunately, there are often problems with the computer system that are not easy to solve. Someone needs to reinstall the OS sooner or later or restore the state of the PC. It is not always possible to access the hard disk drive in order to roll back the system or install a new one. Therefore, experts use a flash drive.

Using it is much more convenient than carrying a heavy hard drive with you. But for this you have to learn how to do it. Many people think that it is difficult to do it. But if you apply the instructions, everything will be much easier. For everything to work out, you need to get a flash drive or memory card.

Training

Before making a USB flash drive a hard drive, you need to prepare everything for this process. First, it's worth understanding multipartitioning. As practice shows, it will have to be abandoned, since flash media cannot cope with other partitions, but only work with the first block.

Next, you need to check if Windows works with the USB flash drive. Then you will have to configure the definition of the drive as a non-removable device. A flash drive is almost always displayed as a removable drive, and the system should "think" that a hard drive is installed.

Before you make a USB flash drive a hard drive, you need to understand that if you do something wrong, you can ruin the device. If the configuration is incorrect, the drive will not be able to change its connection setting. Experts suggest using a special driver.

First stage

Can a USB flash drive be made a hard drive? It is possible, and it will be easy to do, it is only important to adhere to the instructions. After connecting the flash drive, you will need to determine its type. This can be done in two ways: using two commands or a special menu.

To do this, open the Drive Control Manager. Using the combination Win + R, you can launch the Run menu. You will have to enter the diskmgmt.msc command in the search bar. Information about the drive appears.

You can also use In a new window, you will need to enter the following command - list volume. To identify a USB flash drive in the list, just look at the volume of the drive. You can also see the media type in the properties. Just go to the Volumes tab.

Second phase

How to make a USB flash drive a hard drive? After determining the type of drive, you will need to either change the connection or continue working with it. If, nevertheless, the flash drive is defined as a removable device, you need to install the filter driver. To do this, you can use the Hitachi Microdrive utility. Thanks to it, you can not "physically" change the properties of the flash drive, but "deceive" the system by presenting the drive as a hard drive. Then you can make a USB flash drive a hard drive. The system will allow you to divide the archive into several blocks that will have to work simultaneously. It will be enough to install the necessary software.

Stage three

Next, you will need to find the media number. Go to "My Computer", find the connected USB flash drive and click RMB. Selecting "Properties", go to "Details" and in "Properties" select "Path to device instance". The device number will appear below. In this line, you need to copy the characters after the second slash. The numbers are needed for the Hitachi Microdrive program. Next, you will need to find out the bit capacity of the system in order to figure out how to configure the drive.

To do this, just go to "My Computer", right-click on the free area and select "Properties". A new dialog box will show information about the system and its bit depth. Then you can customize the program.

Configuring Hitachi Microdrive Utility

If your computer is 64-bit, you will have to go to the program folder. In it, find the cfadisk document, find the chapter cfadisk_device and cfadisk_device.NTamd64. After the slash, you will need to paste the copied equipment number. If the computer runs on 32 bits, the chapter cfadisk_device must be used. Find the line DISK & VEN_ & PROD_USB_DISK_2.0 & REV_P and insert the media number instead.

Stage four

The last step is to replace the drivers. If you have a 64-bit OS, you will need to configure one more parameter. For correct operation and installation of drivers, you will have to disable digital signature verification, otherwise the system will suspect deception. In addition, it can update itself, which, of course, is undesirable for the process.

The installation can now begin. Open the "Drivers" tab and select "Download Drivers". Here you need to specify the path to the folder with the utility driver. The system detects that the digital signature is disabled, and then asks to restart the PC. After rebooting, the flash drive will work as a non-removable drive.

Working with a hard drive

It is also possible to try to figure out how to make a bootable USB flash drive from a hard disk. It is enough to configure the hard drive to work with the OS. Through the "Control Panel" you need to go to "Administrative Tools" and "Computer Management". In the left column we find "Disk Management". All information on the hard drive partitions will appear in the table on the right. Now you need to format the hard drive and delete all partitions. After that, you will have to partition the disk and create a new volume. It will be enough to make it active and write the operating system there.

Alternative

Thinking about how to make a USB flash drive an external hard drive also leads the user to the Lexar Bootlt utility. It is not often talked about, although it is very simple and effective for this task.

The utility is free and helps to convert a USB flash drive into a fixed device. By the way, thanks to the same program, you can return the drive to a removable type. The software is designed for Lexar devices, but easily copes with other flash drives. Also works with Windows starting from XP version.

But still, there are some nuances associated with this program. The utility works with branded devices, but sometimes fails with other drives. It may crash with a USB 3.0 connection. And it is important to remember that after flashing any device, the warranty is lost.

After installing Lexar Bootlt, you need to run the program as administrator, select a USB flash drive from the list, and then click on the Flip Removable Bit command. Next, you need to save the change and restart the PC.

Working with a laptop

Can a laptop hard drive be made a USB flash drive? As practice shows, laptops are not eternal, so many users simply abandon the device or simply sell. But you can benefit from it by turning the hard drive into a drive. Usually, it is enough to purchase a special box where the railway is placed.

This option is suitable for hard drives that were installed in older models. For example, you can use a 4GB to 100GB hard drive. Larger devices may not work over the rather slow USB interface. A box like this costs about $ 10-20. It comes with the necessary cable to connect the drive to a PC. There are screws to install the hard drive that will securely fix the hard disk drive in the case.

Working with a hard drive and a flash drive is not easy. Be careful not to damage the drive. You should also follow the instructions for installing drivers and carefully use the commands.

Experts advise to immediately figure out how to remove program drivers. In our case, we are talking about Hitachi Microdrive. To do this, open the properties of the hard drive and select update drivers. This process will automatically get rid of third-party installations and load the native driver.

Changing the parameters of the flash drive will lead to the fact that the user will be void of the warranty, so it is better not to experiment with a newly purchased device. In addition, if you make a mistake in the settings, you can lose your drive.

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

An ordinary flash drive is perceived by the system as an external portable device. But it can be easily turned into a drive so that Windows can see another attached hard drive.
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 process of turning USB Flash into an external HDD.

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

For Windows x64 (64-bit)

Download and unzip the archive.
Connect the USB stick and run "Device Manager"... To do this, just start typing the name of the utility in "Start".

Or by right-clicking on "Start" select "Device Manager".
In a branch "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 do not need to copy everything, but to the line USBSTOR \\ GenDisk... You can select lines by holding Ctrl on the keyboard and left-clicking on the required lines.
An example is in the screenshot below.
File F2Dx1.inf from the downloaded archive you need to open it with Notepad. To do this, right-click on it, select "To open with…".

Select Notepad.
Go to the section:
You need to remove the first 4 lines from it (that is, the lines before% attach_drv% \u003d f2d_install, USBSTOR \\ GenDisk).
Paste the value that was copied from "Device Manager", instead of the deleted text.
Before each inserted line add:
% attach_drv% \u003d f2d_install,

It should look like the screenshot.
Save the modified text document.
Switch to "Device Manager", right-click on the flash drive select "Update drivers ...".
Use the method "Search for drivers on this computer".
Press on "Overview" and specify the location of the edited file F2Dx1.inf.
Confirm your intentions by clicking on the button "Continue installation".
When the installation is complete, open Explorer, where flash will appear as "Local drive (X :)" (instead of X, there will be a letter assigned by the system).

For Windows x86 (32-bit)

After that, you can split the flash into partitions, install an 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 with the system on which you have completed all of 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 the USB 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.

To fix a video chip in an old laptop requires a lot of money, and this repair is not worth the expense. But it is perfect for making some other useful things out of its working parts, which we will do in other things now.

In our video you can see how easy it is to make such an external hard drive and how it works.

For work we need:
- notebook;
- screwdriver;
- box for external hard drive.

A box for an external hard drive can be purchased at any electronics store and usually comes with a cable and case.

We begin to disassemble the laptop to remove the hard drive from it. To do this, turn the laptop over and remove the battery. Using a screwdriver, unscrew the screws around the hard drive.

The hard drive is on a slide, which must be unscrewed, they are held on four screws. Now the hard drive is separate, in this case it goes for 160GB.

We put the laptop aside, it will not be useful to us yet.

Now we disassemble our box in which we will hide our hard drive. It is easy to understand. There is a scarf inside the box, into which you need to insert a hard drive. After that, we simply close the box with a lid.

Now we connect the cable that came with the box in the kit, and insert it into the USB connector of a computer or laptop.

There is an additional connector on the cable, which, in fact, is not needed at all. It was only needed for very old computers.

When connected to a computer, it takes some time for it to recognize the external hard drive. After that, a new corresponding icon appears in the folder of the working computer, by clicking on which with the right mouse button you can see the properties of the connected device, its volume.

Such an external hard drive will perfectly replace your flash card, while it will be large enough to store a lot of useful information.

Such an external hard drive can be completely formatted to clean up unnecessary information.

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

But what if there is neither one nor the other, the optical drive does not work, or you have a netbook? After a little reflection, I remembered that I have an external usb pocket for HDD and I also have a free old HDD 2.5ʺ. In general, if you have a pocket hard drive, you can make it bootable accordingly.

For this purpose, there are utilities that can be used to do this, but I decided to use the standard Windows tools.

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

Preparing an external HDD

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

All settings will be carried out using standard Windows 8.1 tools. There may be some differences from Windows of previous releases, but if there are, they are not significant.

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

1. We plug in 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 earlier versions, open the Computer Management console: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Expand Storage Devices / Left Click Disk Management.

See screenshot:

2. Select an external HDD. Be extremely careful, if you choose another disk 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 space, select the command in the context menu Create simple volume:

5. In the window that appears, the Simple Volume Creation Wizard, press the button Further:

Specify the volume size of 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 \u003d 4403.2 megabytes we get for the distribution section (my weight is 4.18 GB, for example);

In this dialog, you need to format a new partition (FAT 32), press Further then Done:

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

Right click with the mouse, select the command in the context menu Make a section active.

To a confirmation request, we answer 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.

Copy Windows to the active partition of the external HDD

Copying a Windows distribution to a bootable external HDD is pretty straightforward and easy.

From a bootable DVD:

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

From ISO image:

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

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

When you turn on the laptop, press F2to;
Go to the tab Boot;
IN Boot Priority order install USB HDD;
We press F10, and then OK.

If it didn't work, then see the article.

Save your changes and get started.

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

Making the hard disk partition active

When I divided the hard disk into two volumes, for a reason unknown to me, none of the disk partitions 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:

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

Installing the active partition using the command line

1. Connect an 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... A prompt will appear for working with the utility - DISKPART\u003e;

4. Enter the command list disk and press the button Enter... You will see all 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, ie. for my external drive there will be a command select disk 1... Click the button Enter, the message Selected disk 1 appears;

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 with which we will work. 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, the message appears Section 1 selected.

8. We mark the selected section as active, for this enter the command active... Click the button Enter, the message appears DiskPart: partition marked as active.

That's all. Good luck.

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 his own laptop, there was nowhere to install it, and just throwing such a volume "until better times" - the toad crushed. And since the hard drive from the laptop is a box a little more than 5 centimeters wide and ~ 6-7 mm thick, a strong-willed decision was made, spending the minimum amount of money and time to turn this disk into a kind of a 500GB flash drive, putting it into a special device called " External HDD pocket«.

To solve this problem, a pocket for a 2.5 ″ HDD was ordered in the online store SunBright (ME-945Q-TI) from a little-known Taiwanese firm Welland at a price of just 15 evergreen dollars.

Here are its characteristics:

Supported HDD types: 2.5 ″ SATA I / II HDD
PC connection: 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
The size: 129 x 77 x 12 mm (L x W x H)
Manufacturing material: Aluminum

For a little thing with a price of "three kopecks" - more is not necessary.

Delivered promptly, on the third day after placing the order was already in my hands.

Inside, everything was in place. Namely, there were:

As you can see - everything is there, and nothing more.
Pocket set

The quality of the pocket itself, on the one hand, pleased with a solid aluminum body - strong, rough, very pleasant to the touch - fingerprints are completely invisible (unless you first eat cutlets with your hands), it looks good and businesslike, and on the other, it upset me that it is a little scary to insert a new hard drive into it - no spacers between the delicate electronic "belly" of the hard drive and the metal inside of the pocket are provided. To calm down, many put a piece of paper cut to the size of the bottom of the disc to be inserted. However, everything works without any problems!

An annoying little thing is the fact that the bolts for screwing the end cap are so small that to screw them neatly, either you need to look for a suitable small screwdriver or have a richly equipped manicure set.

No programs or drivers are needed for the "pocket" to work, I stuck it in, waited until the system detects the device. Well, then, as with a regular flash drive - the connected unit cheerfully blinks the emblem light and faithfully stores the recorded data for six months.

I have nothing good or bad to say about the One Touch Backup feature (that is, one-button backup). Since there was never a need for such a thing. (

Welland pocket assembly:

The procedure for combining all the ingredients (HDD + "pocket" + bolts) is quick and quite simple according to the following scheme.