Convert flash drive to hard drive. How to make an external USB HDD (hard disk) bootable using standard Windows tools? Creating a hard drive from a flash drive

Introduction.
Most laptop owners sooner or later face the problem of lack of space on. As a rule, laptops up to and including 15 inches 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 that can be easily turned into an external USB drive for data transfer.
Naturally, you can purchase a mobile 2.5-inch hard drive and turn it into an external drive. Fortunately, the cost of external drives allows this. For example, at the time of writing, a 250 GB mobile hard drive costs $40, while a 500 GB device from WD costs only $45.
Decide on the type of hard drive.
In fairness, 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 anymore. If you have an unused 2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drive, then first of all you need to determine the type of its interface.
To date, the following interface types exist on the market: IDE (ATA) and various SATA options. 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. Winchesters 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 of the Scorpio Blue series with a SATA interface. This drive was used in an Acer laptop for a long time, but its capacity was not enough, and it was replaced with a more capacious 500 GB solution.

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As a rule, various cases with USB 2.0 interface are presented in stores, cases with eSATA interface are presented in a much smaller number, and even fewer cases with their 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 is the transfer speed. Using the USB 2.0 interface allows for maximum compatibility, as these ports are available on all computers. A significant disadvantage of the USB 2.0 interface is the low data transfer rate, 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 common and is found only in expensive versions of motherboards, cases and laptops. The eSATA interface allows you to fully unlock the potential of SATA devices.

The material of manufacture can also be very different. Simply put, it's plastic. In more expensive variations, an aluminum case with a leather case is included.
The cost of external cases also varies. The cheapest option will cost the user 3 dollars, expensive versions will cost more than 100 dollars.

Purchasing 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 wasteful to say the least. Therefore, for testing, we were given a case worth a symbolic 3 dollars - AgeStar SUB2P1. Completion and external inspection AgeStar SUB2P1.

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From a device worth three dollars, we did not expect any miracles, 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 by a cardboard box listing the key characteristics of the device. This is support for 2.5 inch mobile hard drives or solid state drives with a SATA interface, the availability of a USB 2.0 data transfer interface and various color options.
In fairness, it should be noted that our suppliers have confirmed that they have not seen any other than the black color of this case.

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After opening the package, we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the set includes an instruction manual completely 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 that you immediately remove them from the surface of the device.

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The material of the case is soft black plastic, which does not smell anything, is uniform throughout its structure.

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The covers of the device come off in two different directions, which makes it easy to remove and install the hard drive in an external case.

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The two sides of the outer case are fixed with a plastic latch made from the material of the case. Thanks to the recesses on the walls, the lids are securely fixed and spilling a 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 soldered controllers with SATA ports for power and data transfer.

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On the side wall there is a mini USB port for data transfer and hard drive power supply. There is no additional port to provide power to the drive, which may cause some problems for users. With a weak power supply that lowers the voltage along the 5 volt line, you often have to deal with problems starting the hard drive. As a rule, connecting the drive directly to the port on the motherboard, and not on the case of the system unit, using a high-quality USB cable allows you to forget about this problem.

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Sellers of computer components often talk about the presence of a USB data cable in the kit as an advantage of one or another external case or offer to purchase it separately if it is not. We advise our users not to pay attention to this, as a mini-USB-to-USB cable is usually found in almost every family and is often supplied with mobile phones. In our case, we successfully used a stale data cable from a Nokia mobile phone.

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The next step is to install the hard drive in the case. This is done quite simply - by light pressing. Most importantly, first rotate the hard drive correctly according to the SATA power and 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 efficiently. At the same time, we should not forget that mobile hard drives do not have such a high power consumption to suffer from overheating, and in laptops, as a rule, they are not cooled by anything else.

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After the assembly of the device is completed, the stage of its testing and use begins. The power supply to the device is accompanied by the glow of the blue LED, which also symbolizes the user about the data transfer process. It should be noted that not everyone will have a smooth start with the created external drive. If the hard drive has already been used, it has been formatted and partitions have been created on it, you will not have problems getting started. It will be defined as a regular USB flash drive using the Plug & Play method. But for those users who have purchased a new hard drive without formatting and with no partitions, there will be 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 "Administrative Tools" 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, 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 a desktop computer based on a modern Core i7 processor and no less modern motherboard, and on an Acer Aspire 7730 laptop based on a Core 2 Duo processor. It should be noted that the level of performance on two different systems turned out to be comparable equal.

1. Data reading speed was tested in HD Tach 3.0.4.0

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It's nice 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 tested earlier. The maximum data transfer rate was 34.3 Mb / s, and the average delay was about 17.9 ms.

2. Data reading speed in HD Tune 4.5.

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In the second synthetic test, we got similar data to the previous ones, which also turned out to be slightly better than that of the official WD My Passport Essential external hard drive.

3. The speed of writing files of 64 MB in HD Tune 4.5.

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Somewhat more valuable is testing close to practice, by writing 64 MB files. In this test, we got quite expected results, which were also limited only by the capabilities of the USB 2.0 interface.
Separately, I would like to note that during the entire testing, the temperature of the hard drive did not exceed 35 degrees Celsius, while a similar hard drive installed in a laptop had a temperature of about 43 degrees. Therefore, users will not need to worry about the working conditions of the hard drive in this case.

4. The speed of loading the Windows 7 operating system.

In the course of practical testing on the boot speed of the Windows 7 operating system image, we received results similar to other external drives with a USB 2.0 interface.

5. Drive performance evaluation in Windows 7 environment.

We tested the performance of the external drive we assembled using the Windows 7 operating system. To do this, you need to call the command on the command line: "winsat disk -drive g -ran -write -count 10", where "g" is the letter of the drive under test in the system.

From the test results, it can be seen that the drive we assembled received a much higher rating than the factory WD My Passport Essential solution. Conclusion.
According to the materials of 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 to provide us with the cheapest external case, worth $ 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 facilitates the recovery of data from the hard drive of "dead" laptops.

Despite the fact that AgeStar products are criticized by many for their low quality, after many years of using it, I have only a positive impression of it. First of all, it is for a democratic cost. Marriage occurs in all manufacturers, even if AgeStar has a slightly higher figure than Thermaltake. But the latter has no analogue to the presented external case for three dollars and with a guarantee of 6 months. We award AgeStar products with a gold medal for the best performance/price ratio.

Admin 15.06.2014 - 10:13 Tips

Today, the cost of USB flash drives is still quite high. And a drive with a capacity of 128 gigabytes will cost the user approximately 5,000 rubles. In comparison, a 500 GB hard drive (form factor 2.5”) will cost in the range of 1500 - 2500 rubles! Naturally, the preferred purchase will be the purchase of an external hard drive, or its independent configuration ...

How to build an external hard drive?

The benefit of self-configuring the device is obvious. This is not only an individual selection of external and technical characteristics, but also an opportunity to save money using an existing hard drive.

So in the situation described below, we managed to get by with “little blood”. There is a hard drive - 320 gigabytes, removed from the laptop due to replacement with a larger device. We buy a “hard drive box” (case, pocket, etc.) for it, which costs quite inexpensively, from two hundred rubles and more. This is followed by the assembly process, which takes 5 to 10 minutes.

If you are unsure of the success of self-equipment, then you should contact the experts. For example, ask about the possibility of assembly at the place of purchase, or trust the service center.

Steps for building an external hard drive:

Connecting the drive to a computer:

We connect the resulting drive to the computer using the USB cable supplied with the box. One end (micro-USB) is inserted into the corresponding connector on the box panel, and one (or two) into the free USB ports of your PC;

If the hard drive used in the drive was previously installed in the laptop, as in our case, then the installation will not require any additional steps. Operating systems of the Windows family older than XP version automatically recognize controllers of this type. If you completed the drive with a new hard drive, then you will need to at least format it (often, no additional steps are required, since the factory hard drive is ready for use after connection).

Most models of boxes for external hard drives are equipped with an indication marked as "LED" (it can display the connection - constant light, or intermittent - reading and writing information). Besides the boxing panel can have additional functionality. In our case, this is the "Backup" button, designed to start backup of the specified directories or files (if the software is installed).

P.S.

That's all, it took no more than 15 minutes to start copying the data to the assembled disk. I hope you managed to assemble your external hard drive with a minimum of time and effort.

updated: 06/25/2016

External storage do it yourself. USB drive from a laptop hard drive.

Introduction. Most laptop owners sooner or later face the problem of lack of hard drive space. As a rule, laptops up to and including 15 inches 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 that can be easily turned into an external USB drive for data transfer. Naturally, you can purchase a mobile 2.5-inch hard drive and turn it into an external drive. Fortunately, the cost of external drives allows this. For example, at the time of writing, a 250 GB mobile hard drive costs $40, while a 500 GB device from WD costs only $45.

Decide on the type of hard drive.

In fairness, 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 anymore. If you have an unused 2.5 or 3.5 inch hard drive, then first of all you need to determine the type of its interface.

To date, the following interface types exist on the market: IDE (ATA) and various SATA options. 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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Despite long-term use, the hard drive did not cause any complaints, so it was decided to use it as an external mobile drive. To do this, it was necessary to find an external case for him, which 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 lies in the following: - case material, - type of external port (interface), - cost. As a rule, various cases with USB 2.0 interface are presented in stores, there are much fewer cases with eSATA interface, even fewer cases with their combination 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 is the transfer speed. Using the USB 2.0 interface allows for maximum compatibility, as these ports are available on all computers. A significant disadvantage of the USB 2.0 interface is the low data transfer rate, 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 common and is found only in expensive versions of motherboards, cases and laptops. The eSATA interface allows you to fully unlock the potential of SATA devices. The material of manufacture can also be very different. Simply put, it's plastic. In more expensive variations, an aluminum case with a leather case is included. The cost of external cases also varies. The cheapest option will cost the user 3 dollars, expensive versions will cost more than 100 dollars.

Completion and external inspection AgeStar SUB2P1.

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In fairness, it should be noted that our suppliers have confirmed that they have not seen any other than the black color of this case.

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After opening the package, we were pleasantly surprised by the fact that the set includes an instruction manual completely in Russian.

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The material of the case is soft black plastic, which does not smell anything, is uniform throughout its structure.

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The covers of the device come off in two different directions, which makes it easy to remove and install the hard drive in an external case.

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The device is designed for SATA hard drives, which we have repeatedly emphasized. Inside soldered controllers with SATA ports for power and data transfer.

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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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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 "Administrative Tools" 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, 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 a desktop computer based on a modern Core i7 processor and no less modern motherboard, and on an Acer Aspire 7730 laptop based on a Core 2 Duo processor. It should be noted that the level of performance on two different systems turned out to be comparable equal.

1. Data reading speed was tested in HD Tach 3.0.4.0

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2. Data reading speed in HD Tune 4.5.

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In the second synthetic test, we got similar data to the previous ones, which also turned out to be slightly better than that of the official WD My Passport Essential external hard drive.

3. The speed of writing files of 64 MB in HD Tune 4.5.

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Somewhat more valuable is testing close to practice, by writing 64 MB files. In this test, we got quite expected results, which were also limited only by the capabilities of the USB 2.0 interface. Separately, I would like to note that during the entire testing, the temperature of the hard drive did not exceed 35 degrees Celsius, while a similar hard drive installed in a laptop had a temperature of about 43 degrees. Therefore, users will not need to worry about the working conditions of the hard drive in this case.

4. The speed of loading the Windows 7 operating system.

In the course of practical testing on the boot speed of the Windows 7 operating system image, we received results similar to other external drives with a USB 2.0 interface.

5. Drive performance evaluation in Windows 7 environment.

From the test results, it can be seen that the drive we assembled received a much higher rating than the factory WD My Passport Essential solution.

Conclusion. According to the materials of 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 to provide us with the cheapest external case, worth $ 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 facilitates the recovery of data from the hard drive of "dead" laptops.

www.megaobzor.com

Turning a USB flash drive into a hard drive

Any flash drive can be easily turned from the point of view of Windows into a natural hard drive. That is, for the operating system, a USB flash drive will be perceived as a regular, fixed disk, and not as an external portable device. Why might this be needed?

This technique is described primarily for those who want to prepare a USB flash drive for installing Windows 7 from Windows XP using the DISKPART utility. The whole problem is that in Windows XP the DISKPART utility does not see the USB flash drive point-blank at all. Enter the list disk command for DISKPART even a hundred times, it is useless: as a result, we will be shown only available hard drives and nothing more.

Therefore, you cannot make a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7 from Windows XP using DISKPART at all.

However, what happiness - this problem can be solved in a tricky way. Namely: we will turn the flash drive into a regular fixed disk. In other words, for Windows XP, the flash drive will become another hard drive. And then DISKPART will show the disk we need as a pretty one. Cool? Still would!

Such a transformation of a flash drive will also come in handy for other purposes, wherever you plan to use a flash drive instead of a removable hard drive.

By the way, are you wondering why the hell DISKPART does not display a USB flash drive at all? It's all about the RMB (removable media bit) descriptor written on each flash drive. It is because of him that Windows XP (and other versions of Windows) perceive the USB flash drive as a plug-in device (i.e. removable device). It is enough to remove this descriptor and the flash drive will mutate into a hard disk, it will be displayed as a disk in the My Computer window, all file managers and generally everywhere.

A wonderful driver from Hitachi will allow us to make such a feint with our ears. Therefore, first of all, we need to download it, and then modify it.

Download Hitachi driver for USB flash drive

Unzip the driver archive and find the cfadisk.inf file. Let's open it. There is a lot of stuff in the file, but we need one section, it's called .

And it has the main line with which we do street magic. In the file, it looks like this:

Now all we need to do is to replace the selected part of the record with the identification data of the flash drive, which we will turn into a hard drive. And then we will change its name.

How to do it? First of all, plug the flash drive into the USB port. Now open the Device Manager (for example, select Start > Run, type devmgmt.msc and press the key).

Expand the Disk drives section, right-click on the name of the flash drive and select the Properties command.

Click the Details tab. There, the Device Instance Code menu will immediately open, this is the code we need. Highlight the code with one click with the left mouse button and press the key combination to save it to the clipboard.

Well, then everything is simple. We open the cfadisk.inf file, find the section, in it the line that starts with %Microdrive_devdesc% and change the specified value after %Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install to the one copied earlier.

In other words, you need to change the line in bold below to the one you copied. Then save the cfadisk.inf file.

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\DISK&VEN_JETFLASH&PROD_TS1GJF168&REV_0.00\A7B03577C3F1B5&0

Now change the name of the flash drive. At the very end of the cfadisk.inf file, we find the line Microdrive_devdesc = in the section and change the value in brackets to any other. Initially, the value “UsbToFix” is indicated there, you can leave it.

The most important thing remains: install the updated cfadisk.inf driver for our USB flash drive. To do this, click on the name of the flash drive again in the Device Manager window and select the Update driver command.

The Hardware Update Wizard window opens. Now step by step.

In the first window, select the No, not this time radio button and click the Next button.
Select the Install from a list or specific location radio button, click the Next button.
Select the Do not search radio button. I will choose the correct driver myself and click on the Next button.

Click the Install from Disk button.
In the Install from Disk window, click the Browse button and select the driver folder where the cfadisk.inf file is located.
Windows will ask you if you really want to install the driver, click on the Continue installation button and then on the Finish button.

Now the job is done and the flash drive has turned into a hard drive, cheers. Unplug it, plug it back in and format it. And now look: instead of a portable device icon, the flash drive will be displayed as a hard drive.

Well, that's all, the flash drive has successfully turned into a hard drive, and now it will become available for the DISKPART utility, or maybe you will find another use for it.

winddata.ru

How to connect a hard drive to USB

Suppose you have upgraded your laptop and replaced some of the parts with more powerful, capacious and faster ones. Everything is great, but you still have old parts that are still quite working and it’s a pity to throw them away. Of course, you can sell them online or give them away for free. But among them there is a little thing that may still come in handy and this is a hard drive.

Initially, I thought of writing instructions, but in fact it turned out that I got a review about using the device. I did not fix 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 500 GB hard drive from a laptop. But due to the lack of their own laptop, it turned out to be nowhere to install it, but just throwing a similar volume “until better times” - the toad crushed. And since a 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 by spending a minimum amount of money and time to turn this drive into a kind of 500 GB flash drive by putting it into special device called " External HDD pocket«.

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

Here are its characteristics:

Supported HDD types: 2.5″ SATA I/II HDD
Connecting to a computer: USB 2.0 up to 480Mbps
System requirements: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 or MAC OS 9.0 or above
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)
Production material: Aluminum

For a little thing worth "three kopecks" - more is not needed.

When there is not enough free space on the hard drive, and it is impossible to free it, you have to consider various options for increasing 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 drive connected to a computer or laptop via USB.

A regular flash drive is perceived by the system as an external portable device. But it can be easily turned into a drive so that Windows will see another hard drive connected.
In the future, you can install an operating system on it (optionally Windows, you can choose among the “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 performing all the steps listed below (for both bit depths of Windows), you may need to reconnect the flash drive. First, safely remove the USB drive, and then reconnect it so that the OS recognizes it as an HDD.

For Windows x64 (64-bit)

Download and unzip the archive.
Plug in flash drive and run "Device Manager". To do this, simply start typing the name of the utility in "Start".

Or right click on "Start" select "Device Manager".
In branch "Disk Devices" select the connected flash drive, double-click on it with the left mouse button - they will start "Properties".
Switch to tab "Intelligence" and copy the property value "Hardware ID". You do not need to copy everything, but up to the line USBSTOR\GenDisk. You can select lines by holding Ctrl on the keyboard and clicking the left mouse button on the desired lines.
An example is in the screenshot below.
File F2Dx1.inf from the downloaded archive you need to open with Notepad. To do this, right-click on it and select "To open with…".

Select Notepad.
Go to section:
You need to remove the first 4 lines from it (that is, the lines before %attach_drv% = 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% = f2d_install,

It should look like 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".
Press on "Review" 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 the flash will be displayed as "Local Disk (X:)" (instead of X there will be a letter assigned by the system).

For Windows x86 (32-bit)

After that, you can partition 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 on the system where 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 flash drive as an HDD on other PCs, then you need to have an edited driver file with you, and then install it through the "Device Manager" in the same way as indicated in the article.

Windows users with a standard set of knowledge about the capabilities of the operating system are unlikely to have to deal with the need to split the memory of a USB drive into two halves. However, such an operation may be necessary if certain versions of Windows are written to a flash card with the possibility of subsequent installation or reinstallation of the system.

The USB flash drive as such has almost completely replaced compact discs due to the following reasons:

In general, splitting a flash drive into two parts will be needed for many purposes. The end result of such an operation is the recognition of the flash card by the computer as one of the hard drives. Fortunately, for this you do not need special knowledge: just learn about the following methods.

How to make a flash drive a hard drive?

At the moment, the following options for dividing a flash drive into two parts are known:

use of special programs or so-called utilities. You should look for them on the website of the brand, which authorship belongs to a specific USB drive model. Downloading from third-party resources can be not only unsafe, but also pointless;
driver replacement. In this case, the digital signature of the initially installed flash drive driver is verified. As a result, the user needs to save the driver without this signature;
installing the Hitachi Microdrive driver. Drivers for cards from this manufacturer will help to divide drives of almost any other brand into two parts.

All these are quite simple and, moreover, free methods that are worth considering in more detail.

Using utilities

With the help of such a program, you can not only turn the drive into a hard drive, but also achieve the opposite effect. The most famous utility of this kind is Lexar Bootit.

With its help, it is possible to store the most common operating system - Windows, regardless of the version of the latter.

How to install the Lexar Bootit utility?

Download the archive with the program from the official website of the brand. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the mentioned site contains versions for both macbooks and personal computers.
Run the program. A prerequisite is to run it with administrator rights.
Next, the user will be presented with a choice of portable devices. Accordingly, it is worth stopping the choice on the flash drive that you plan to split.
Click on the "Flip Removable Bit" button.
Confirm the actions taken.
Remove the flash drive using safe removal, and then reconnect. In the “Volumes” tab (“Capacity”), opposite the “Type” characteristic (“Type”), “Basic” (“Main”) should be affixed.

In case of problems with the functioning of the utility, it is recommended to restart Windows. As a rule, in this case, the "transformation" of the card into a disk occurs within a few minutes.

Replacing drivers

This operation is considered more complicated, but in case of inaccuracies with the previous method, it can be a worthy replacement.

How to install a third-party driver instead of the standard version of the flash drive itself?

Find the required flash drive in the "My Computer" tab.
Right-click to open the menu and select the "Properties" line.
In the fourth tab "Drivers" ("Drivers") select the button "Resume Driver" ("Update Driver").
In the next window, select the location of the utility.
Next - select the previously downloaded driver and confirm with the "Next" button.
After that, a warning window will appear in front of the user. The system will notify you that the driver is not digitally signed. Among the two options offered, it is worth choosing "Install this driver software anyway".

This completes the installation process. Be sure to restart the computer itself and reconnect the flash card.

Installing the Hitachi Microdrive Driver

In this case, we are talking about the so-called filter driver. This method is considered one of the most reliable and, importantly, safe.

How to install the Hitachi Motodrive filter driver?

Determine the type of your operating system - 32-bit or 64-bit. To do this, open the Control Panel, and then the System tab. The bit depth of your computer will be indicated there.
Download the Hitachi Microdrive driver depending on the information received. Accordingly, the download should be carried out from the official website of the mentioned brand.
On the flash drive icon in "My Computer", go to the "Properties" menu with the right mouse button.
Open the "Hardware" tab, click on the "Properties" button.
In the very last tab "Details" click on the button and select "Device Instance Path" from the list. Next, copy the code to the clipboard.
Next, open the downloaded driver. You can use any type of text editor to open it.

Important! For a 64-bit system, open the "cfadisk" file.
The user is presented with two lines, each of which contains the word "Disk". The data after this word should be replaced with the code you just copied.
After the manipulations, the file must be saved.
Go to the “Drivers” tab, select the “Update Driver” button, then follow the instructions described in the “Changing Drivers” section.