Replaceable USB drive like a hard drive in Windows. How to make a hard drive from a flash drive How to make a floppy drive from a flash drive
Floppy drives continue to be abandoned modern systems. The small capacity and low reliability of floppy disks should have long ago forced users and manufacturers to abandon floppy disks, but the widespread use (PC standard) for a long time made this method of transferring small amounts of information simple and convenient, and new standards (LS-100, CD, USB) did not have spread so globally. But today the USB standard has become widespread not only in almost all computers, but also in many electronic devices. Storage media connected to USB have large volumes, and their prices are rapidly falling. In addition, compared to CD/DVD, they are more convenient to record/change data, are protected from damage and are convenient for everyday transportation. Absence in many laptop computers FDD/CD/DVD drives make it necessary to create bootable USB devices to install the operating system. About installing the system with USB Flash Drive will be discussed in this article.
An instructive case from life
The reason for writing this article was the incident with the IBM ThinkPad X41 subnotebook. It was necessary to install the operating system on the computer in a minimum basic configuration (without a docking station and CD and FDD drives). The available ports included USB (fortunately, the BIOS supported booting from USB drives), IrDA, and a port replicator with COM ports and LPT. The only equipment available was a computer with USB ports and Windows 98SE, Windows XP and Imation USB Flash Drive installed.
Of course, the easiest and fastest option would be to connect a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer via an HDD3.5"->2.5" adapter, but problems arose here. The disk was large (which did not allow it to be recognized by our BIOS motherboard even with latest update firmware). We managed to bypass this limitation by transferring disk recognition to Windows. To do this, it was logical to set “None” instead of “Auto” in the CMOS Setup settings, but the computer still froze when detecting drives on the IDE bus. Then auto-detection (“Auto”) was turned on, and at the moment of determination, (Skip) was pressed, after which Windows correctly recognized this disk, which allowed it to work with it. The disk was split and formatted, made bootable, but when installing it in the laptop, it turned out that the IBM ThinkPad has its own peculiarities of accessing the disk, which makes its partitioning on another system incorrect.
So the only option left was to make the USB Flash Drive bootable, mark up the partitions, and transfer distribution kits from the desktop computer.
How to make Flash Drive bootable
To ensure booting from disk, you must have a Primary (Active) partition with correctly placed system files (so that the BIOS can find them and transfer OS boot control to them). To successfully load MS-DOS, you must locate IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS at the very beginning of the partition (which can be done using the SYS.COM or FORMAT.COM utility when formatting a partition with the “/S” key). DOS partitions allow you to create both FDISK.COM (DOS, Windows 95/98) and a management console Windows disks NT/2000/XP. But none of them can make the primary USB FlashDisk partition active (FDISK.COM states that only one partition can be active in the system). A number of disk utilities (for example, PowerQuest (Symantec) Partition Magic) and specialized utilities for managing USB Flash drives (often supplied with the devices themselves) allow you to do the “impossible.”
The widest possibilities for working with disks are in real DOS mode, in which we can directly access devices, and most system utilities(like Partition Magic, Symantec Ghost, etc.) work in this mode (under the shell in Windows, only the program is configured before launching). For USB devices, workable universal drivers for DOS have appeared relatively recently. Information about them is available on The Inquirer website (http://theinquirer.net/?article=10215). To work with USB FlashDrive, you need drivers included in two sets. The first is the ASPI HDD driver (DI1000DD.SYS) from the Motto Hairu USB1.1 mode ASPI Manager kit, which includes support for USB-FDD (RAMFD.SYS, designed to copy the floppy disk image into memory if necessary, free up the USB port to which disk drive is connected). This file is available at http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/mhairu.zip. The second USBASPI.SYS driver is from a set of Matsushita/Panasonic utilities and drivers for working with USB CD drives (http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/drive/cdrrw/kxlrw40an/driver/kxlrw40an.exe).
To install the driver, you will need to register it in the configuration files of the boot DOS disk/floppy disk CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICEHIGH=USBASPI.SYS /V
DEVICEHIGH=DI1000DD.SYS
Some usbaspi.sys driver keys:
/w (Wait – wait) – a message is displayed when a device is changed or connected;
/v (Verbose – disable) – displays a status message (recommended);
/l[=n] – defines the maximum logical device number (LUN), default is “0”;
To speed up the detection of devices on USB controllers, you can enable only those present in the system:
/e – enable controllers of the EHCI specification (USB 2.0) only;
/o – enable only OHCI specification controllers ( a new version USB 1.x);
/u – enable controllers of UHCI specification only ( old version USB 1.x).
Without these keys, all controllers will be checked (recommended).
To support USB-CDD, you will also need the USBCD.SYS file from the same set of utilities, and you also need to add the following lines to CONFIG.SYS:
DEVICEHIGH=USBCD.SYS /D:USBCD001
IN AUTOEXEC.BAT:
LH MSCDEX /d:USBCD001
Perhaps the most unpleasant limitation in working under MS-DOS is not so much 16-bit access as problems with long file names (which are cut when copying). Therefore, it is preferable to use 32 (64)-bit OS to work with files.
At first glance, it is easier for Windows 2000/XP users - flash drives are usually detected automatically and do not require drivers. There are a lot of programs for formatting and managing disks: for example, HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/sp27001-27500/SP27213.exe) and Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (http:/ /www.microsoft.com/windows/partnerpack/desc/ufd.htm). Despite its “versatility,” none of the listed programs could make our Imation FlashDrive bootable. All three necessary conditions(the main partition is formatted in FAT16, made active, and placed on it system files) were executed, but the computer could not boot from this flash drive (“Operating System Not Found"), I had to look for other ways. Since the storage capacity is very limited, the file system is usually FAT, and the boot OS is usually DOS (although there are various compact LINUX-like systems, but those who work with them are unlikely to encounter such difficulties). Accordingly, problems arise with finding DOS files and creating a bootable DOS image. But these questions are explained quite well on the Internet, and there are various simple ways acquire DOS files (for example, [ftp://ftp.roverbook.com/.bios/System_w98.zip] or [http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm]. In addition, the HP USB Disk Storage program Format Tool can transfer system files not only from a system floppy disk (or its image), but also from any folder on the disk where there are the necessary DOS files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM).The remaining files can be created or copy manually.
At first glance, Windows 98SE users are out of luck. But this is only at first glance! Universal driver for USB drives exists, and its name is NUSB - Maximus Decim Native USB Driver for Windows 98SE (http://lemnews.com/drivers/).
After installing the driver nusb22r.exe (here r is the “Russian version”; according to the developer, you cannot use the Russian version for the English version of Windows and vice versa), all our drives began to be detected and installed by the system without problems.
Create a boot partition
Now you need to create a boot partition on the flash drive. We were unable to access USB devices from DOS on our system, so we are looking for an opportunity to create a boot partition from Windows. By running FDISK, we can easily make the main partition on the disk, but according to FDISK, only one partition on the boot HDD can be active. Not true! There is a utility called Partition Magic from PowerQuest, included in Symantec (http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/system_performance/pm80/index.html), which allows you not only to create, split, merge and hide different file systems , make any sections active, but also many other “perversions”. Will it cope with working with a USB drive under Windows? After all, when we reboot into real mode, we will lose the USB drive. We are trying to run PQMagic 8.0 for DOS under Windows... No, it’s too smart, it doesn’t allow it. What about the earlier one? Version 4.0 (http://www.mvps.org/dts/WinME_DOS/partition_magic.htm) “says” that it will work, but will not make changes from Windows. Let's try to deceive the program! In the properties of the pqmagic.exe file we will disable detection Windows program(at one's own risk). We launch the utility - it works! Let's try to carry out the necessary operations: if you wish, you can delete the original partition and create a main FAT and an additional one instead. Be sure to make the main boot partition active. Now you can apply all the actions.
After completing the operations, PQMagic decided to reboot the computer, during which it was quite neatly terminated by the system. In order to see the changes and continue working with the test subject, you need to “stop” the drive (using the icon in the system tray), remove it from the USB connector and insert it back.
Filling and configuration
So, the section has been created. Now you need to make the disk bootable. To do this, copy the system files using the SYS F: command (where F: is the boot partition of the USB drive). You can use the standard utility Windows formatting on this section, checking the “Quick format” and “Copy system files” checkboxes. After the operations have been completed, the system files necessary for loading will appear on the disk, but they are not enough to work with the system - you need to create or edit system configuration files (MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT) and copy the necessary drivers and utilities.
The main configuration parameters are given below:
Paths to system Windows files remarked, calls to ScanDisk, DoubleSpace, DriveSpace, DBLBUFF.SYS are disabled, system registry, loading the Windows interface (BootGUI), displaying the logo is prohibited, waiting for commands when starting the system is reduced to zero.
DEVICE=BOOT\DRIVERS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICEHIGH=BOOT\DRIVERS\VIDE_CDD.SYS /D:CDDRIVER
COUNTRY=007,866,_BOOT\DRIVERS\COUNTRY.SYS
The SWITCHES keys slightly speed up system startup; the COUNTRY driver is required for working with files with Russian names. VIDE_CDD.SYS – CD-ROM driver. HIMEM.SYS, COUNTRY.SYS and CDROMDRV.SYS are located in the BOOT\DRIVERS folder.
LH BOOT\DRIVERS\SMARTDRV.EXE
LH BOOT\DRIVERS\KEYRUS.COM
LH BOOT\DRIVERS\MOUSE.COM
LH BOOT\DRIVERS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDDRIVER
SET SHELL=COMMAND.COM
Here, the display of “extra” information on the screen during the boot process is disabled, the disk write buffering drivers SMARTDRV.EXE (required when working with large volumes), Russification KEYRUS.COM, mouse MOUSE.COM, CD drive driver MSCDEX.EXE are loaded. At the end of the boot, the DOS Navigator 1.51 shell (DN.COM) is launched and, if DN is exited, the command interpreter COMMAND.COM is launched. Instead of DN, you can use Norton Commander, Volkov Commander, even MS-DOS Shell. Naturally, all these drivers and programs must be located in the specified paths.
In the TOOLS folder we placed Partition Magic, the SYS.COM file, programs for testing equipment, connections between computers via an LPT port, and others. Bootable Flash Drive is ready!
Making the HDD bootable
To install the system we need to mark HDD computer, make it active, copy the basic system files and system distribution, then reboot from it. In CMOS Setup, set the boot order from the USB Flash Drive, boot the computer, launch PartitionMagic.
If you plan to install Windows 2000/XP, then it makes sense to partition the disk as follows: create a 1-5 GB Primary Unformatted partition, 2-8 GB Primary FAT16(32), and the rest in Extended FAT32 (after installing the system, you can convert to NTFS), then Primary Unformatted – delete, and Primary FAT make active. The empty space at the beginning of the disk will be formatted under Windows in NTFS format assigning it the letter “Z” and placing the SWAPFILE.SYS caching file on it (“Control Panel” -> “System” -> “Performance”). If you leave the boot partition in FAT format, then after installing the system you will be able to boot in DOS mode.
Having made the hard drive system (SYS A: C) and copied files from a USB drive to it, we can begin transferring the distribution.
Transferring a Windows distribution
The most convenient way is to pack the i386 folder of the distribution with WinRAR (but not into an SFX archive!), divided into volumes equal in size to the volume free space on a flash disk, and transfer it in parts, dropping it onto the Extended partition of the hard drive, then copy RAR.EXE there and unpack the archive (RAR E I386.RAR -A). This technique is also necessary when transferring a distribution from a CD to DOS. Due to the difference between the ISO 9660 Level1 (DOS) and ISO 9660 Joliet (Windows) standards for CDFS, long file names displayed under DOS in 8.3 format with a tilde in the name are displayed without a tilde when copied from a CD, which causes a discrepancy between the actual short and copied names (which will cause errors during system installation). But we did it differently: we connected the computers using a PLIP cable (LPT-LPT) and launched INTERLNK.EXE from Microsoft on a laptop (placing a link to it in CONFIG.SYS), and on a desktop computer we launched INTERSVR.EXE under Windows, which allowed pump data through the LPT port. You can also use Norton Commander, remembering to trim long file names (which can be solved by downloading files in the archive).
Now that the distribution has been transferred, you can start installing Windows 2000/XP from DOS. To do this, go to the i386 folder and execute the WINNT command. Further - according to the instructions.
In conclusion, we note that this method was useful to us when we had problems booting from a computer CD-ROM (Toshiba Satellite), and not only.
Features of FlashDrive partitioning
As mentioned above, to ensure booting from FlashDrive, you must have a primary active partition. But there can be several partitions on a disk. Our test subject was divided into two partitions (primary FAT16 and secondary FAT16), and was displayed in Windows 98 as “drive FG:”. But under Windows 2000/XP, only one main partition was visible on our drive. When trying with using Partition Magic to create a second main partition, one of the two partitions became hidden (Hidden), and no letter was assigned to it. It is possible to create a second partition in Windows 2000/XP, but it is not assigned a letter and cannot be mounted. To split flash drives into partitions, there are special utilities supplied with these devices. Perhaps partitioning into logical drives in other ways will work with these devices. Disks can be divided into FAT16 partitions up to 2 GB in size - for larger sizes you will have to use FAT32 or other systems (NTFS, HPFS, ext2, ext3, etc., subject to compatibility with the OS). FAT16 support is implemented in almost all operating systems by default. For NTFS, you can use compression, which may be more convenient than archiving when transferring and storing large volumes of text and other easily compressible information.
Flash Drive Features
As for the capabilities of a bootable USB device with DOS, there are many useful and simply irreplaceable utilities that work only under DOS. This is a set of utilities from Symantec - DOS files Norton Utilities (SystemWorks) and Ghost. For example, UNERASE under DOS (unlike UE32 for Windows) is able to restore and partially damaged files, and UNFORMAT does not exist under Windows at all. Symantec Ghost is a wonderful utility for creating and unpacking images of hard drives, as well as burning them to CD/DVD, available as a distribution kit on the website http://www.symantec.com/region/ru/product/ng_index.html, but for For full-fledged work, it only needs one small file GHOST.EXE, which can be easily found through http://www.filesearch.ru. Moreover, this miracle can be launched at any time from under DOS, allowing you to additional drivers make images of both FAT and NTFS partitions, split them into several CD/DVDs, burn disks (creating bootable ones if you have a system floppy), unpack partition images both from a CD/DVD and from an image file on any partition ( even NTFS!). There are small and simple programs for analysis and testing of the system (for example, SPEEDSYS.EXE - http://user.dol.ru/~dxover/), as well as MHDD (http://www.hddguru.com/ru/, section "Software") - a powerful program for restoring and editing service information of hard drives, allowing you to replace the entire PC-3000 hardware and software complex. So DOS is rather alive, and with the widespread removal of floppy drives, it is finding a second life on new types of media.
This article will discuss how, by reprogramming (“flashing”) the control controller of a flash memory module (“flash drive”), force any computer to which such a flash drive is connected to perceive it not as a standard USB drive, but as an external CD/DVD drive with the CD the user needs “inserted” into it.
Copyright notice
To be honest, at first I didn’t want to include this section in my article at all. However, after some thought, I decided to do it. Why? Well, firstly, this is the fashion now ;-) Secondly, I thought that it would really be nice to familiarize readers in advance with the principles that I adhered to when writing this article, in order to avoid possible misunderstandings in the future.
So, the first principle is the author's disclaimer. This does not mean at all that the information presented in the article was taken “out of thin air” and has never been verified by anyone. Just the opposite - I personally, using the method I outlined here, “reflashed” at least two dozen flash drives, and all operations, except for one single time, were completed successfully. Speaking of disclaimer, I only draw your attention to the fact that due to such objective factors that are not in any way controlled by me, such as: a huge variety of models and modifications of flash drives, possible mistakes in the software used, different hardware and software configurations of computers and no less different levels of user training, everything that works fine on my computer may not work on yours. Additionally, I would like to note that the method I describe is not standard and pre-provided for their products by manufacturers of flash memory modules, therefore All operations described in this article are performed at your own peril and risk.. Remember this! If, as a result of performing the manipulations described below, you suffer any material and/or moral damage, please address all claims only to yourself. ABOUT possible I warned you about the risk of further actions. If you do not find yourself ready to act on such conditions, then simply do not try to reproduce them.
The second principle is the principle of independence. In my article I provide links to Internet pages where you can download this or that software that we need for our work. So, I warn you in advance that I have nothing to do with the owners of these pages, much less with the developers of the software posted on them. Using the programs indicated in the article, I myself am in exactly the same position as you, my dear readers. Thus, if by the time my article is published, the specified software is not located at the specified links, or it is infected with viruses, or damages your computer in any way - again, all complaints should be addressed either to the authors of the resources or to the program developers (if, of course, you manage to find them), or to yourself.
And one last thing. Since I strongly doubt that the topic of my article will interest novice computer users, I initially count on a trained reader. Therefore, I will try to present those aspects that are directly related to the topic of the article in the most understandable and detailed language, but I will not pay attention (except in special cases) to those actions that are part of normal computer work. That is, for example, how to launch the “task manager” (and what it is in general), where the “address bar” is located in the browser (and why it is even needed), you, dear readers, should already know. If you (suddenly!) don’t know this, then it’s clearly premature for you to read my article - except as information for “general development” to know that “this also happens.”
Why is this necessary, or why are we not looking for easy ways?
To answer this question, we will have to start from afar.
As is known, in the period lasting approximately from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, the main carriers of more or less significant amounts of information were optical compact discs - first CD discs with a capacity of up to several hundred megabytes appeared, then they were slowly replaced various modifications of more “advanced” DVDs with a capacity of up to several gigabytes. At present, despite their greatly weakened positions, CDs have not yet completely lost their importance (at least in such areas as, for example, the sale of “boxed” software).
Around the mid-2000s, CDs, which had previously almost reigned supreme in the field of data transfer, had serious competitors - storage media based on flash memory (colloquially referred to as “flash drives”). By the way, the first models of flash drives for the “general public” were released back in 2000, and the many-year delay before their widespread distribution is explained exclusively by the small volume and high cost production of the first production samples. However, from the very beginning, flash memory technology was so obvious advantages before traditional methods of storing information, that bringing certain specific parameters “to mind” was only a matter of time.
Despite the fact that modern flash memory modules are superior to conventional CDs in almost all comparable parameters (volume, speed characteristics, compactness), the vast majority of flash memory drives have one very serious drawback - security. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof. An interesting, but understandable, fact is that the viral “stock” transmitted through storage media existed at a small but stable level until the mid-90s (during the era of floppy disks) and practically disappeared by the mid-2000s, since The widespread use of flash drives is developing at an unprecedented pace. The answer lies in the fact that optical discs, due to their special technology for recording information, require special software. We should not forget that 100% of “branded” disks generally belong to the “...-ROM” category, that is, they are “read-only” devices, writing to which is impossible in principle. There were no CDs yet worthy alternative, both users and manufacturers have had to deal with the inherent recording difficulties of optical discs. But at the same time, it was precisely these difficulties that were an almost insurmountable obstacle for viruses! Virus writers would have to build a full-fledged recording program into each of their “creations.” optical disks, which would immediately negate such important characteristics for viruses as secrecy, speed and small volume. Apparently, keeping in mind the problems so typical for optical disks, the developers of flash memory modules decided to make life easier for end users. And viruses. Since a flash drive, on a par with a floppy disk, hard drive, does not require any third-party software to record information and any operations can be performed through standard Windows Explorer, all barriers to viruses that prevent them from penetrating to a flash drive and back have disappeared. And considering how popular this type of media is now, one can imagine the level of interest in them on the part of virus authors and the approximate scale of the epidemic. Sometimes it’s enough just to plug flash drive to the infected computer so that it can immediately take up residence on it someone(I had to deal with viruses that automatically scanned USB ports for the presence of storage devices and, if any were found, immediately wrote a copy of themselves to them or carried out some destructive actions). A few years ago, it was still possible to find models of flash drives on sale with a special switch on the case that blocked the ability to write to a flash drive (although there were very few such models at that time), however, unfortunately, nowadays such flash drives are almost never found. The reason for the refusal by manufacturers to such an inexpensive but extremely useful improvement is not known to me. Judging by some reviews posted on the Internet, such microswitches have a short mechanical life and fail quite quickly, leaving the flash drive in read-only mode, which causes a storm of indignation from users who are forced to buy a new flash drive ahead of schedule.
For ordinary users, such a microswitch on a flash drive may indeed be unnecessary - it is enough to have a more or less adequate antivirus on the computer... But what to do unusual users - administrators, repair engineers, information recovery specialists? After all, they often have to work with a completely unfamiliar computer, in conditions where it starts and works at all! No self-respecting surgeon would perform an operation with a dirty, unsterile instrument. In this sense, the work of a doctor and a professional computer scientist has much in common - in both cases, sterility is extremely important. You can, of course, take a “step back” and write the entire necessary set of programs onto the good old optical discs of the “...-R” modification, but...
First of all, a complete set professional programs to restore the computer's functionality, as a rule, it has a volume significantly exceeding the capacity of one disk, so you will have to carry with you not just one, but a whole set of disks, which, you see, is no longer good...
Secondly, optical disks, which serve as “workhorses”, constantly transported whenever, wherever and in anything, deteriorate quite quickly, becoming dusty and covered with scratches.
Thirdly, even the most “advanced” modifications of DVDs provide very mediocre, by modern standards, reading speed. It happens that loading the system from such a resuscitation disk takes up to 10-15 minutes. I don’t argue that some people will agree to wait 10 or 15 minutes, or even a whole hour - it would be just something to wait for, but, you see, if there is an opportunity to significantly increase the productivity of their work, it would be a sin not to take advantage of this opportunity.
Fourthly, such a once standard and mandatory device as a DVD drive is increasingly becoming persona non grata in a modern computer; it has not been in laptop computers “from birth”, and I won’t say anything about Blu-Ray drives at all.. At the same time, not only are almost all types of computers equipped with USB ports, but the number of these useful ports is steadily growing. So you may well encounter a situation where you only have a set of CDs on hand, and the computer being restored has only a free USB port instead of the expected drive.
In general, I really don’t want to give up the now familiar flash drives in favor of optical disks! “But there’s no need! - an experienced user will say. “Isn’t the Internet filled with programs that allow you to write an “image” of the desired disk to a flash drive?” And he will be right... Partly. Most of these programs - DirectGRUB, WinSetupFromUSB, WinToFlash, UnetBootIn, ROSAImageWriter - and dozens of others like them really do a good job, but, firstly, they do not give the user “freedom of maneuver”, clearly “tying” him to the “image” of this or that other type; and secondly, despite the opportunity to boot from a flash drive processed by them, your information remains completely unprotected. That is, the flash drive can still be easily formatted, delete some files from it, or, conversely, add some information.
However, there is a method that allows you to write absolute contents to a flash drive. any the disk you need with the ability to boot from this flash drive, and its contents will be reliably protected from “invasion” - creating a CD-ROM (DVD-ISO) partition on a flash drive and recording an “image” of the desired disk into it.
Why is “reflashing” possible?
This becomes possible because the manufacturers of controllers for flash drives themselves initially include in their products the ability to work in various modes, including the mode of emulation (simulating) an external CD/DVD drive. Thus, manufacturers leave themselves a “loophole” to create various cunning “branded” flash drives. After some time, information about this one way or another becomes available to the general public, and after another period of time, versions of “proprietary” utilities appear on the Internet that make it possible to switch the controller mode in practice.
What is needed for “reflashing”?
To successfully complete this interesting procedure we will need:
- a computer running Windows XP or later with Internet access;
- a flash drive equipped with a controller that has a CD-ROM emulation function;
- flashing program;
- actually, the “firmware” itself (in 99% of cases it is supplied with the program);
- ISO image of the desired disk;
- any instructions (for example, this article);
- approximately one hour of free time;
- straight arms and crooked brains (but in no case vice versa! ;-))
As I already said, you must know what an ISO image is and have it available (download from the Internet, “remove” it from an existing optical disk, “assemble” it yourself). If you don’t know what it is and can’t download/remove/build an ISO image, then, sorry, I won’t describe this procedure here for you personally, since the topic is so vast and multifaceted that it deserves a separate article. As a last resort, you can find all the necessary information on the Internet. In the future, I will no longer return to this issue, and I will assume that you have the necessary “image”.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the most difficult stage is, oddly enough, the preparatory stage. The most difficult thing is to choose a mutually suitable “flash drive - program” pair. If you managed to pick such a pair, then with a 99% probability everything that follows will end successfully.
Why is this so difficult to do? Yes, simply because nowhere to get information. Since “reflashing” the controller is not included in the concept of “regular work” with a flash drive, manufacturers do not consider it necessary to indicate such uninteresting details (why do you need it, poor things?!? ;-)). Moreover, it is enough to mentally put yourself in the place of a large manufacturer of flash drives to understand that one should not even hope for any, so to speak, “internal constancy” of products - he (the manufacturer) produces them in millions of pieces, and at the same time he must take care of continuous supply of them to the market. It follows from this that he has dozens of contracts with various companies producing controllers, memory chips and other electronic “stuffing”. Today, one specific model of flash drive is produced on the A-001 controller, in a month the same model (!), in exactly the same case (!) will be produced with the B-002 controller, and in another six months, when the previous controller supplier has problems with production, another company will take over the baton, offering its new Yo-030 controller. Of course, sooner or later service utilities appear on the Internet even for the newest types of controllers, but how much time will pass between the start of sales of flash drives on this controller and the appearance on the Internet of a suitable utility for it, only God and Chinese computer pirates know;-)
This leads to three possible strategies for our search:
- borrow every flash drive bought by a friend, colleague, or issued at work by the supply department for an hour, and check it special program(I’ll tell you which one below). The flash drive will not suffer from this and all information on it will remain safe and sound. If we see that the controller is exactly the one we need, we immediately find out from a friend/colleague/supplier where the flash drive was purchased and go there to buy the same one for ourselves.
- search for the information we are interested in on the Internet (for example, using the phrase “controller + “flash drive model”). Sometimes people on specialized forums, when describing a particular flash drive, also indicate the controller model. Here, however, you should be careful and look at the publication date - if the description of the flash drive you found is older than six months, then there is a high probability that even if you buy such a flash drive, you will be very upset, because it will be on a completely different controller.
- from time to time buy one flash drive you like, checking it for the presence of the desired controller and, then, act according to point 1. Obvious disadvantages this method are a big investment of time and money.
The most preferable for beginning sewing mechanics... oh, no - programmers, are flash drives on SMI controllers. Phison controllers are a little more complicated to flash, but in general, it’s also not bad, but it’s better not to mess with Alcor and SSS controllers unless absolutely necessary. With regard to flash drive brands, the products of greatest interest to us are “A-Data” and “Apacer” (most), “Kingston” and “Transcend” (minor).
If you fundamentally do not want to waste time and money searching for the desired flash drive model, but want to “reflash” the one you already have at all costs, try first looking for a suitable “flashing” program here: and here:. The site listed first - usbdev.ru - contains a more complete and detailed file archive, and the likelihood of finding the most latest version the desired program it's much higher here. At the same time, its “completeness” and richness of information also have a downside - for a beginner, as a rule, it is very difficult to decide which software from the ones available on the site he really needs. The site listed second - flashboot.ru - has more simple structure and a rather nice appearance, but it is not a fact that here, firstly, you will be able to find the program you need, and secondly, that this program will be the latest. Also, when selecting the right software, you should not forget that both of these sites are dedicated to USB drives at all, therefore, programs that make it possible to “turn” flash drives into CD/DVD-ROM are not specially separated or sorted by anyone, getting lost in the general mass of their colleagues designed to restore the functionality of flash drives, monitor, diagnose media, low-level formatting, provide loading from a flash drive and other things.
Demonstration equipment
As a “guinea pig” I chose an eight-gigabyte flash drive “Transcend JetFlash 520S”. Why did I choose this particular flash drive? It's simple:
- Since I decided to combine useful with... useful - to write this article and create a new repair flash drive-DVD-ROM for my needs, I first of all paid attention to the type of case. In this model of flash drive, all the electronic filling is placed in a sealed all-metal case, the connector is made integral with the case, which, you see, is important for a “workhorse” that you constantly have to carry with you. No static discharges, lost or forgotten caps, bent connectors - even protected from moisture penetration (although I haven’t personally checked ;-)).
- The ISO image I have, which I was going to “upload” to a flash drive, takes up about 3.3 gigabytes, so, of course, I could get by with a four-gigabyte one, but flash drives with a capacity of less than 8 gigabytes do not exist in this design .
- and finally, most importantly, I managed to find information that this model Flash drives are currently being produced based on one of the modifications of the “SMI” controller - just what you need!
The flash drive comes in a small cardboard box, inside of which there are: brief instructions, an insert with advertising information and a transparent blister, which, in turn, contains the flash drive itself and the branded “Transcend” strap (cute, but extremely short, clearly intended to increase convenience manipulations with a flash drive, but not for carrying):
The flash drive itself is not full-size, but not miniature either - overall dimensions (length*width*thickness in millimeters): 37*12*4.5. In general, “slender” ;-)
Controller Model Definition
First of all, let's create “in the root” of any of the local disks of your computer working folder, into which we will place all the programs we need for flashing. You can rename the newly created folder to your liking, but keep in mind that the name of this folder should not contain spaces or Russian letters. As an example I will use the "USBreFLASH" folder on local disk"C" of my computer. It wouldn’t hurt to immediately add this folder to the exceptions of your antivirus, since, for example, my vigilant “watchman” “Dr.Web”er, when I first accessed this folder, moved about a third of the program modules to “Quarantine”, considering them “ potentially dangerous" and "possibly infected".
After we have decided on the working folder, we launch the browser available on the system (in my case - “ Mozilla Firefox") and in the address bar we type the following: . On the page that opens, click on the “Download program” link located below (2). The archive with the program offered for downloading takes up approximately 3 megabytes; after unpacking, the folder with the program will take up a little more space - about 4.5 megabytes.
After that, go to the downloads folder (its location depends on your browser settings), find the “usbflashinfo” archive and, using any archiver available on the system, unpack it into the previously created “USBreFLASH” folder. As a result of this, a folder of the same name “usbflashinfo” and a text file “File_id.diz” containing short description program versions. Since this file is not needed for the program to work and is only an eyesore, we delete it with a clear conscience.
Next, go to the “usbflashinfo” subdirectory and launch the only exe file “GetFlashInfo.exe” from there. A program window opens with a warning text and a single button “Get information about the flash drive” (see figure):
We connect the flash drive we have at our disposal to a free USB port.
Please read the warning carefully before taking further action! The program shows it to you every time you start it, and I will additionally remind you here. The main condition for the successful and safe completion of the diagnostic procedure is no access to the flash drive, that is, before starting and during the diagnostic process itself, you should not read or write anything from or to a flash drive. Otherwise (very nasty! :-)) when you click on the “Get information about the flash drive” button, the program will roughly “cut off” everyone else’s access to the flash drive, and what will happen after that with the data on the flash drive (if it is there, of course) exist), no one knows. As you yourself understand, this is especially important if the flash drive being tested is not yours, and, in addition, is filled with information that is important for its real owner, the safety of which you have no right to risk. Please note that some antiviruses (Kaspersky and others like it), acting “by default”, rush to check the newly inserted flash drive with all their might, so it is better to either wait for this process to complete, or, if the information on the flash drive is very a lot and the scan is delayed, interrupt it through the antivirus menu.
So, we make sure that no one or nothing is working with the flash drive at the moment, and click the “Get information about the flash drive” button. If everything is in order with the flash drive and nothing prevented the diagnostic program from completing its work to the end, the main program window will be filled with the data obtained as a result of polling the flash drive. The second line from the top will indicate the model of the controller on which the experimental flash drive is assembled (in this case, “Silicon Motion SM3257 ENBA”):
For the future, you should keep in mind that the developers of the usbflashinfo program are trying to “keep up” with the times, so you may well encounter a situation where a program downloaded several months ago, upon subsequent launch, refuses to work and asks you to download an updated version - there is no need to worry or be afraid of this, the program developers do not require money from you (at least for now ;-)), so you should not neglect the update O it.
Search for service utility
So, we managed to determine specific model controller on which our flash drive is assembled. Now is the time to start looking for a suitable flashing program. I hope you haven’t forgotten the address of this wonderful site - ? As I already said, when visiting this site you can easily get lost among the abundance of software presented on it, so I’ll give you a hint - the main service utility for working with flash drives on “SMI” controllers is called “ SMI MPTool" Despite the same name, this program exists in many versions and modifications, differing in support for certain models of controllers and memory chips. Therefore, you need to not just download the latest version, but make sure that it supports your particular controller model.
To find the version of the program we need, we again launch the browser available on the system and type in the address bar: :
Slowly “scrolling” the page that opens, pay attention to the models of supported controllers indicated in square brackets to the right of the name and version number of the production utilities. Let me remind you that in this case we are interested in the line containing . After the required line is found, download this version utilities by clicking on the word “download” in the found line:
We find among the downloads a freshly downloaded archive with a service utility and, using any archiver available in the system, unpack it into the previously created “USBreFLASH” folder. After unpacking, a subdirectory “smi_mptool_v.2.5.27_v8_m1004_3257enba” with program files and a text file “readme.txt” with a link to the source site appear in our working folder. Since the “readme.txt” file does not have any practical value, we simply delete it so as not to clutter up the working folder.
In principle, you can stop at this stage, but despite the fact that the name of the folder with the program is “correct” from the point of view of the program itself (that is, it does not contain spaces or Cyrillic characters), I would advise, for convenience, to shorten the name of the folder somewhat , to, for example, this: “smi_mptool_3257enba”. I repeat - the flasher program will launch perfectly and will work even without renaming the folder in which it is stored, so the purpose of renaming is just to make it a little easier for the user to navigate the working folder.
Editing the configuration file
At first I wanted to call this section “ Creation configuration file", however, I remembered that the configuration file itself, although in a form unsuitable for our purpose, was already present in the folder with the service program, so I called the section " Edit configuration file."
So what kind of file is this, why is it needed and, most importantly, how to edit it?
The configuration file is a simple text file called “default.ini” and contains instructions for the firmware program to in what way you need to “flash” the flash drive controller. Since the configuration file, despite the unusual (in the eyes of a non-specialist) extension “.ini”, as already mentioned, is a regular text file, it can be edited even using the standard Windows text editor “Notepad”. However, the lesson this is thankless and a bit complicated for beginners, so we will make changes to the configuration file directly through the interface of the “flashing” program, which, exclusively for this purpose, has a special button (well done, Chinese!) In general, the need to edit it is explained by the fact that that the configuration file included with the service utility is intended, first of all, to restore functionality regular flash drives, therefore, it does not provide any opportunity to “turn” a standard flash drive into a CD/DVD drive “by default.”
To make the changes we need to the configuration file, go to the folder with the service utility - “smi_mptool_3257enba” - and launch the only one from there executable file- “sm32Xtest_V27-8.exe”:
The main window of the service utility opens in front of us, in which we need to sequentially:
- click the “Setting” button at the right edge of the program window (1);
- in the password entry window that opens, type: “320” ( without quotes!) (2);
- Confirm your entry by pressing the “OK” button (3):
If you leave the password field empty or enter any combination of letters and numbers there, the program will still give you the opportunity to view the current settings, but will not allow you to edit them - keep this in mind. After we have entered the correct password to be able to change the settings, a window will open in which we will be asked to select a configuration file (2) from those already available in the program folder (1) or specify the path to the configuration file (if you saved it somewhere “outside”), confirming the selection by pressing the “OK” button (3):
There is nothing stopping you from creating several different configuration files over time so that you can choose the one most suitable for your specific task before starting work. The program, immediately after launch, “by default” works with the “default.ini” file located in the program folder, so this file should not be renamed or deleted. It should be noted here that the mechanism for changing configuration files in the SMI MPTool program is not implemented very well. If you need to change the “default” configuration file to some other one, you will need to open this “other” file for editing in exactly the same way as described above, but do not make any changes and just click on the “OK” button . After this, the program will “think” for a few seconds, and when it “comes to its senses,” the file you selected will be installed as a working file. You can determine which configuration file is currently in use by looking at the title of the window of the running program, in the center of which, delimited on both sides by continuous underscore characters, the name of the currently active configuration file will be indicated, for example: “___default.ini___”. It should be remembered that when saving or creating configuration files, they are subject to exactly the same requirements as those imposed on the program itself - the file name ( and all the way to it!) should be as short as possible and should not contain spaces or characters from the Russian alphabet.
Since the topic of creating multiple configuration files, as well as clarifying the differences between them, is beyond the scope of this article, I will not dwell on this in detail, but will simply describe what changes should be made to the existing configuration file “default.ini” in order to After “reflashing” the controller, the flash drive began to be defined as a CD/DVD drive. After you have completed all the previous steps and opened the “default.ini” file for editing, a window with many settings will appear before your eyes (see figure):
All the settings contained in the first tab of the window, called “Main Flow Setting” (“my main settings”) - and we are only interested in this one tab for now - can be divided into five groups:
- extended USB device identifiers (1);
- abbreviated USB device identifiers (2);
- USB device type (3);
- USB device indication (4);
- the actual “flashing” settings (5).
From the first group of settings we will need only two lines - “Vendor Str” (“Vendor Name”) and “Product Str” (“Product Name”). In principle, the information they contain only affects the “name” under which your flash drive, after flashing, will appear in the Windows Explorer window and in the BIOS boot menu. The full “name” of the flash drive will be displayed as: “manufacturer name” space “product name” . When filling out these fields, Latin letters, numbers and even a space character are acceptable. Since I am creating a bootable flash drive in the form of a CD/DVD drive to repair broken computers, the ISO image that I plan to “upload” to the flash drive is called “Repair”. Accordingly, it will be more convenient for me if my repair flash drive is designated as “REPAIR USB DISK”. This means that in the “Vendor Str” field I need to enter the word “REPAIR” (without quotes), and leave the “Product Str” field as is. Of course, you can change the contents of these fields to your liking, for example, by immortalizing your name in the name of the flash drive: “ETO SDELAL VOVA” ;-)
In the second group of settings, we just need to duplicate the manufacturer name and product name in exactly the same form as you entered it earlier. In the same group there is a “switch” for the current consumed by the flash drive “USB Power”, but I would not advise you to use it, and here’s why. The real, “physical” current consumed by a flash drive depends directly on design features the flash drive itself and cannot be changed in any way programmatically. The value determined by this “sort of switch” only tells the system how powerful the equipment is connected and whether it is possible to find an opportunity to “save” on its power supply. It follows that it is quite possible that a flash drive physically consumes, say, 300 mA, and you manually set the value to 200 mA, as a result of which the system, when connecting the flash drive, will consider that it “has the right” to reduce the current to the specified 200 mA, and The flash drive, of course, will stop working. Therefore, it is better not to win any crumbs, but to leave here the standard value of 500 mA, which is more than enough for the vast majority of flash drive models.
In the third group, we are interested in the “Disk Type” and “Disk Label” fields. For our purpose, the “Disk Type” field should be set to “USB-ZIP”; and in the “Disk Label” field you must repeat (yes, for the third time!) what you indicated in the “Product Str” (from the first group) and “Product” (from the second group) fields ).
The fourth group of settings is responsible for changing the light indication of the flash drive, and nothing needs to be changed here.
Finally, the fifth group of settings is of greatest interest to us. Here are the parameters directly related to the “flashing” process:
- "Boot Blk" - boot sector. By default, the checkbox is checked, but the file is not selected. It doesn't matter to us.
- “Erase Info” - erase all information. By default there is no checkbox. It doesn’t matter to us, since when “flashing” all the information on the flash drive will be lost in any case.
- "Pretest" - " pre accumulative test" This refers to a test of flash drive memory cells. By default, the “daw” is checked, the “Erase Good Block Only” option is selected (“to erase only good blocks”). Flash drives, like hard disks, during manufacturing they undergo full memory testing, as a result of which unstable memory blocks are identified and marked in a special way in order to prevent their further use. If the “Erase Good Block Only” method is selected, then the flash drive controller does not overwrite the table of “bad” blocks created at the factory and tests only those blocks that were marked as “good”. Some older types of controllers “did not know how” to implement this method in practice, therefore, if problems arise during “flashing”, you can change the value of this parameter to “Erase All Block”. This will slow down the flashing process, but may help if problems arise.
- “Write CID” - “a method of recording information.” By default, the “daw” is checked, “TSOP Standard Type” is selected as the method, which is standard for all modern flash drives and does not require replacement with any other method.
- “Download ISP” - “download a specific type of firmware.” By default, the checkbox is checked, but the file is not selected. The point does not make much sense - if the program “recognizes” the connected flash drive, then it will select the appropriate type of “firmware”; if not, then selecting something manually in our particular case is pointless, since you still won’t really “flash” the flash drive.
- “Copy Test” - perform a preliminary test of copying information to a flash drive. By default, the “daw” is checked, the amount of information to be copied is selected in the amount of 2% of the capacity of the flash drive. For us, this item does not play a special role - in order to once again verify the quality of the flash drive, you can leave it turned on; To speed up the flashing process, you can disable it.
- “Make Auto Run” - “create an autorun”. The name is not entirely accurate, since it is precisely the inclusion of this item (checked) that gives us the opportunity to load an ISO image of the desired disk onto a flash drive during flashing. After the item becomes active, a field to enter the path to the ISO image opens to the right of it. In my case, this path looks like this: “D:\ISO\REPAIR.ISO”. Please note that the path to the image, as well as the name of the image itself, must be as short as possible, without Cyrillic characters and spaces! Activating the “CDROM Only” sub-item enables a mode in which the free space remaining on the flash drive after recording the image is blocked (until subsequent flashing) and becomes unavailable for use. Deactivating this sub-item, accordingly, allows you to use the remaining free space as usual removable drive, that is, one physical flash drive will be detected by the system as a composite device of an external CD/DVD drive and a regular flash drive. On my own behalf, I would like to add that, despite the seeming tempting of this method, which consists in the fact that you are allowed to use the entire volume of a honestly paid for flash drive, this method is fraught with problems in the future, since not all computers can boot via BIOS from such a “composite” flash drive. Personally, I’m willing to sacrifice the remaining half of the flash drive’s capacity to ensure maximum compatibility, so I’ll enable this option. If you nevertheless chose the option with a “composite” device, then by checking the checkboxes on the checkboxes located below, you can immediately set the formatting mode for the remaining capacity of the flash drive and select the file system type.
- "Preload" - "pre-load". By default, there is no checkbox and this item is inactive. We don't need to change its state. Activation of this item implies simple entry some of your data onto a flash drive during the “flashing” process - in much the same way as you do it using regular Windows Explorer. Of course, such data loading is only possible if you Not create a CD-ROM, or at least leave free space on the flash drive (see previous paragraph). The question is, why add this option to the settings? What, after “reflashing” the flash drive, it will be impossible to write data in the “usual” way? Of course it is possible. But only they will not be protected from change. That is why the program developers added this item and the next one to the settings, which is called...
- “Disk Read Only” - “read-only disk”. By default, there is no checkbox. In relation to our task, it does not play a special role, since the CD/DVD disk obtained after flashing a flash drive, even with the “Disk Read Only” parameter inactive, will still be “read-only”. But if you do not create a partition on a CD-ROM flash drive or plan to write some arbitrary information to the remaining space, activating this item will help you protect it from unauthorized changes.
- “Test Result LED Flash” - “checking the results.” The default is "daw". It is advisable to leave this item active to once again make sure that the “flashing” process was completed properly.
As a result of all the ordeals with the settings, you should get something like the following (here the items that I considered necessary to change are highlighted in red; of course, in your particular case, the settings may differ from mine):
After all the necessary changes have been made, we must save the configuration file. To do this, click on the “Save As” button located at the right edge of the bottom edge of the settings window (1), then in the standard window that opens, select the existing “default.ini” file (2) and click on the “OK” button (3) :
Let me remind you that if for some reason you do not want to “spoil” the original “default.ini” file, then you can save it under a different name, for example “forcdrom.ini”. If you decide to overwrite the existing configuration file, then after clicking on the “OK” button, another window will open in front of you, in which you will be asked to confirm the replacement of the file. In any of these cases, after you complete the described actions, the settings selection window will close, and the program will automatically switch to working with the updated configuration file (in case of creating a new configuration file - before restarting).
After the configuration file has been properly edited, you can proceed directly to the “flashing” process.
“Reflashing” the flash drive controller
Before starting the “flashing” (or even better, before connecting a flash drive), it is highly advisable to pause the antivirus. Yes, yes, I, of course, remember that you have already added our working folder to the antivirus exceptions, however, do not forget that in the process of “flashing” the service utility will have to go “outside” - to where the one specified in the settings is stored image file, and braking antivirus monitor the flow of data “flowing” from one disk to another is fraught with the emergence of the most unexpected errors. Everyone else's work application programs, not related to the flashing process, should also be completed. Additionally, I note that it is very rare and not on all computers, but, nevertheless, it happens that the monitor’s energy saving functions, forgotten by the user and activated at the wrong time during the “flashing” process, hard drives, the motherboard, as well as turning on the screensaver, make it impossible to complete it correctly. Therefore, instead of taking risks and checking in practice with a result unpredictable for a flash drive whether you have the “right” computer, I would advise you to temporarily disable all energy saving functions for the above devices, and either turn off the screensaver for a while or set a longer interval activation - at least one hour. During this time, firstly, you will take some actions in any case; secondly, it will become clear how great the chances of success of our event are.
After work antivirus program paused, the energy-saving functions of the hardware are disabled, and the time before the screen saver is activated is increased, insert a suitable flash drive into a free USB port:
We launch the flasher program. If your computer has the Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 operating system installed, then use the “Run as Administrator” function. Since I have good old Windows XP, I do without such problems and simply launch the program file for execution. The main window of the service utility opens before us:
First of all, use the mouse to click the “Scan USB” button, located at the right edge of the program window, in the middle (1). The same effect can be achieved by simply pressing the “F5” key on the keyboard. If at the moment you press a button - on-screen or keyboard - it makes no difference, a suitable flash drive is connected to the computer and nothing interferes with the program’s operation, the following changes will occur in the program window:
- firstly, in one of the lines of the list of 16 possible USB ports (what a scope! :-)), the status value “Ready”, volume accessible flash memory, controller models and unique serial number flash drives (2);
- secondly, in one of the squares corresponding to the same 16 USB ports, the value will appear total volume flash drives, an obscure index “2” (the second representation option?), and to the right and below the main square there will be a small additional one, filled with blue, corresponding to the same controller status “Ready” (3);
- thirdly, in the lowest information window the name of the flash drive controller model and the corresponding binary firmware will appear, automatically selected by the service utility (4).
If, after pressing the “Scan USB” button, the listed changes do not occur to you, then this indicates either some physical problem with the flash drive/USB port, or that the program does not “know” anything at all about the connected flash drive. Sometimes it happens that, based on the scan results, the information fields are filled in, but the controller status value is indicated as “No ready” or “ISP can"t be found!” and is displayed in a red font, not blue (the small additional square in the graphical representation field (3) also becomes the same color). Unlike the previous situation, when the program “knew” nothing at all about the connected flash drive, this means that the program I “recognized” the flash drive, but it (the program) does not have at its disposal the binary firmware suitable specifically for this type of controller.In this case, all that remains is to look for a newer and (or) suitable version of the “flashing” program.
Let's hope that you correctly identified the model of the flash drive controller, took the choice of the service utility very seriously, and that everything is in order with the USB ports on your computer, so the program window is blue, symbolizing inspiration (what, you didn’t know? : -)), the promising status “Ready” is displayed. This is the last step when you can “painlessly” refuse to “reflash” the flash drive if you suddenly change your mind. And if not, then all you have to do is click with the mouse on the “Start” button (the top one at the right edge of the program window), or, which is the same thing, press the “Space” key on the keyboard (1):
After this, in the very first line, which previously had the inscription “Ready”, in the “Progress” column a progress indicator similar to the one that is standard for Windows (2) will start. Please note that it will fill up and reset again some times, since the “flashing” process consists of several successive stages (we haven’t forgotten many settings in configuration file? ;-)), and the indicator shows the current progress everyone process one by one. You can find out exactly what stage the flashing process is currently at by looking at the second option for representing USB ports in the form of squares. In the square that corresponds to your USB port to which the “flashing” flash drive is connected, a description of the current stage of the “reflashing” process will be displayed in the form of a text inscription (3). In this case, it is clear that the screenshot was taken at the moment when the preliminary testing was performed, as clearly evidenced by the inscription “Test” in the background of the first square. In the lower right corner of the program, a counter of the time elapsed since the start of the “flashing” is displayed in seconds (4).
Keep in mind that the process of “flashing” itself and, moreover, writing the image file require considerable time - sometimes up to several tens of minutes. Despite the fact that the speed of data transfer via the USB bus is strictly regulated by relevant standards, the execution time of the “flashing” process is influenced by many factors, both obvious (number of stages during “reflashing”, USB port standard, ISO image size), and and hidden (configuration and characteristics of the computer’s disk subsystem, parallel execution system processes, controller modification). In any case, you should be patient and under no circumstances interrupt the “reflashing” process if the counter continues to count seconds, the indicator scale moves slowly, and the inscriptions on the square symbolizing the USB port change. Of course, if, for example, for a whole hour the inscription “Test” is not replaced by the inscription “Load”, and the indicator either stands still or cyclically fills/resets, you will have to make a sad conclusion that that the “flashing” has currently failed and the program will crash. But, I repeat, this is - extreme a case that should not be resorted to unless absolutely necessary and without clear evidence of the “freezing” of the “flashing” process.
Evidence of the successful completion of the “flashing” process is a “reset” progress indicator, a stopped time counter and, most importantly, the appearance of two green squares with the inscription “OK” in the graphical representation field and in the upper right corner of the program:
As you can see, on mine On the computer, “reflashing” an 8-gigabyte flash drive with preliminary testing and recording an ISO image with a capacity of 3.3 gigabytes took a little more than 13 minutes and ended quite successfully.
After the long-awaited “OK” inscriptions “light up” in the service utility window, close the program and safe using this method we extract our flash drive.
Remember - at the first moment after flashing, you only need to safely remove the flash drive with the obligatory preliminary stop of the device!
Checking the results
Let's say you did everything correctly and the flashing process was completed successfully, after which you turned off in a safe way flash drive and remove it from the USB connector. What's next? And then we have to check the result of the “flashing” by testing our flash drive in action. Therefore, without delaying the matter (as a rule, human nature is designed in such a way that you want to quickly see the result of your work), let’s start testing. To do this, we again connect our experimental flash drive to the computer:
But what do we see? A computer that has long been “familiar” with our flash drive (it identified it even at the very first connection and installed the appropriate driver), has just worked with it and into which we, after just a few seconds, reinserted it, informs us about that “New equipment was found” - but not a flash drive at all, but first we are talking about a certain “REPAIR USB DISK USB Device”, and then it is clarified that this device belongs to the class of “CD/DVD drives”!
Now let's see how this device is displayed in the standard Windows "My Computer" window:
Obviously, it is classified as a “Devices with removable media”, and is displayed as a CD/DVD drive (in my case it is assigned the letter “G:”) with a “REPAIR” disk inserted into it.
Do you still have doubts that the drive is “not real”? Then let's look at its properties:
From what we have been shown operating system in the properties window of this device, we can clearly conclude that the drive is a “real” one, with the CDFS file system, which is the “calling card” of real CDs, and a complete lack of free space for recording.
How are things going with his security? Maybe the flash drive only skillfully “pretends” to be a CD/DVD drive, but in fact remains a standard random access media accessible to everyone? To answer this question, let’s try to write some arbitrary file to it (for testing, I’ll try to copy the “readme.txt” file from the archive with the flasher program):
Does not work! We are politely but firmly made to understand that this, so to speak, “disk” is “read-only” and you cannot copy or move files to it. Well, am I really repeating the standard Windows message to you? Have you never seen it yourself? ;-)
Thus, it turns out that we really “turned” the flash drive into a CD/DVD drive, along the way once again making sure that it is now really recognized by the system as a real CD/DVD drive and can write or change the data stored on it (or everything). “on it”?) files are not possible, but - I hope you haven’t forgotten yet? - we are interested in one more important feature our “reflashed” flash drive, namely the ability to boot a computer from it via BIOS. Therefore, the last and most important stage of verification lies ahead of us.
Leave the flash drive connected to the computer and reboot it. While the BIOS firmware is running, we call up the boot menu (usually by pressing one of the “F+digit” keys - which one depends on the developer of your computer’s motherboard) and make sure that our flash drive is present in the list of devices from which you can download:
After we confirm our choice by pressing the “Enter” key, we make sure that the computer actually boots from our flash drive (of course, the resulting “picture” on the monitor will depend on which ISO image you chose to write to process of “flashing”):
Congratulations - you have not only become the proud owner of a unique flash drive, but also mastered the technique of making such flash drives!
Possible problems and ways to solve them
Despite the fact that SMI controllers are among the most reliable and thoughtful, during such a delicate and non-standard process as “flashing”, a wide variety of errors and problems may arise. I sincerely wish you a successful completion of each “flashing”, but if it does happen that the process ends with an error or does not complete at all (“freezes”), I hope this section can help you, in which I tried to collect descriptions and possible ways solutions to the most common problems. At the same time, I ask you not to consider the material presented here as the “ultimate truth.” Alone person who owns one(well, let’s say, even two or three) computers, and having “reflashed” only two dozen flash drives out of thousands available for sale, it is simply physically impossible to “catch” all possible “glitches” and “bugs” that arise due to the greatest variety of hardware combinations -software configurations of computers, models of flash drives and controllers, as well as differences in the experience of their owners. Therefore, it is quite possible that a situation will arise when, in the process of implementing the actions outlined in this article, you will encounter a certain problem, and I, in turn, will not be able to help you. In this case, I can advise you to search for information about the problem that has arisen on the Internet, ask the appropriate question on specialized forums (at least on the two sites mentioned at the beginning of the article - and ), consult with more experienced comrades, or try to implement these actions on another computer (on work, with friends...).
So, now a direct description of possible problems and ways to solve them:
| Description of the problem | Clarification | Possible reason | Solution |
| The service utility does not “see” the flash drive | The operating system also does not “see” the flash drive | Physical malfunction of the flash drive | Replace the flash drive with a working one |
| Physical failure of the USB port | Connect the flash drive to another USB port | ||
| Failure " south bridge» motherboard | Repair or replace the motherboard | ||
| USB device support is disabled at the BIOS level | Enable support for USB devices in BIOS | ||
| The corresponding USB controller is disabled at the operating system level | Enable the USB controller (for example, through Device Manager) | ||
| Not installed at all or inappropriate drivers for the motherboard are installed | Check and, if necessary, update drivers for the motherboard | ||
The flash drive does not have enough power:
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| The operating system “sees” the flash drive | Temporarily disable anti-virus protection, as well as currently unnecessary software running in the “background” mode (for example, using “msconfig”) | ||
| The connected flash drive is incompatible with the version of the service utility being used | Replace the flash drive with a compatible one or update the software | ||
| The service utility “recognizes” the flash drive, but cannot work with it | One of the following messages is displayed: "No ready" "Initial Param Fail" "ISP can"t be found" | The service utility cannot find the appropriate firmware file for this controller model | Select supporting this type controller software |
| The service utility “resets” or “freezes” during operation | The problem occurs at the same stage of the “flashing” process | The configuration file contains functions that are not supported by this controller model |
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| The integrity of the ISO image written to the flash drive during the “flashing” process has been compromised | Check the integrity of the ISO image used and, if necessary, update or replace it | ||
| The problem occurs at different stages of the flashing process | The operation of the service utility is interfered with by activated energy-saving functions of computer components | Disable or pause all energy saving features (both software and hardware) | |
| The operation of the service utility is interfered with by the activity of anti-virus tools or other third-party software | Temporarily disable anti-virus protection, as well as currently unnecessary software running in the background | ||
| The service utility does not have enough system rights to perform the action | Run the program “As Administrator” and (or) “In compatibility mode for Windows XP” | ||
| The flashing process ends with an error | The message appears: “Bad Block over setting” | The detected number of unstable flash memory blocks exceeds the maximum allowed specified value |
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| The message appears: “Bad Block over setting (User... > FW...)» | An unrecoverable error has occurred with the flash memory. |
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My CD-ROM doesn't work. I downloaded the OS image file to my hard drive and burned it onto a 2 gigabyte flash drive using the Ultra ISO program. However, I can't find the flash drive in the BIOS. My BIOS is Award. Here's what's there: Floppy; LS120; Hard Disk; CD-ROM; Zip100; USB-FDD; USB-Zip; USB-ROM; LAN I tried changing to USB-FDD, USB-ROM, USB-Zip, Zip100. Then I did everything as described. However, when I exit the BIOS, the computer reboots and boots from the hard drive. I can't figure out where I'm making a mistake. Thank you very much for the help.
Zero | November 3, 2013, 04:32
Catch it yourself simple and quick option- http://setting.ucoz.ru/index/kak_ustanovit_windows_xp_s_fleshki/0-14
helg | 16 February 2012, 21:24
I also have a similar problem. It is not necessary to set the BIOS to boot from USB. When loading, just go to the boot menu. However, I converted a bunch of these bootable flash drives. Various utilities different ways, with different “fillings” and this is what I have so far:
1. Bootable flash drives created by Acronis always work on all computers with USB. Apparently because they are “Linusox”.
2. Other bootable flash drives I create work on relatively new computers and do not work on old ones.
It seems that I came across methods for creating bootloaders based on Linux, but I haven’t gotten around to experimenting yet.
Sergey | 12 February 2012, 06:24
For Windows installations The XP flash drive must be bootable, otherwise it won’t work. Type “bootable flash drive” (without “) in the search bar of your browser and read the instructions on how to make a flash drive bootable. The image must be written to a flash drive and not copied. In the BIOS - either USB-ZIP or ZIP-100. If your computer more than 5 years, it is unlikely to work, because they did not yet support loading from flash drives.
Cuanza | February 11, 2012, 11:59
Turn everything off USB devices, except for the bootable USB flash drive. Enter the BIOS and try setting the USB-ZIP option. Save.
money | 11 February 2012, 11:41
In my opinion, you need to do this: during system startup, press F8, as a result, all connected devices from which you can start should be displayed in the form of a table; after that you need to select the one you need.
If it still boots from the hard drive, it means the flash drive is wrong. In addition, 2 gigabytes will not be enough to run the system...
G.Balakhchi | February 11, 2012, 10:19
1. If you write to a flash drive image of a tough disk, then from such a flash drive you can restore the old system rather than install a new one. You need to burn the OS distribution installer image to the flash drive. Of course, I mean burning an image, not an image file with an ISO extension and so on.
I believe, after all, that you wrote down what you needed, i.e. OS installer, although this does not directly follow from the question.
2. Try to format the flash drive as USB-FDD, this can be done using the HP Drive Key Boot Utility (http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839 ), it formats the flash drive and sets the flash drive emulation parameter (USB-FDD or USB-HDD). There are other utilities as well.
Well, then you know how to act.
yang | 10 February 2012, 22:51
In the BIOS, enable "Other boot devices" (I don't remember how to say it in English) and put Zip100 as the first boot device.
yang | 10 February 2012, 22:45
Find the file WinXP.BOOT.USB.DEVICE on the Internet. The file is distributed as an exe file and is accompanied by detailed instructions on how to write to a flash drive and then install Windows XP from it.
Alexander | 10 February 2012, 17:17
Thank you very much for your answers! I downloaded it onto the flash drive exactly as instructed. I tried using hotkeys. When exiting the BIOS, I pressed F10, but to no avail.
Cuanza, thank you for your answer. The trouble is that I can’t find the parameter in the BIOS that is needed for the flash drive, but I tried: USB-FDD, USB-ROM, USB-Zip, Zip100. No result. I'm ready to use floppy disks for installation, since CD-ROM does not write.
Alexander | 9 February 2012, 20:28
Option one: simply written to a flash drive ISO image, but you need to go through the menu: Bootstrap - Create a hard disk image. Option two: you may not need to go into the BIOS, but when booting the system, you can select boot options using hotkey(F12; Esc; etc.). Option three: maybe the F10 key was not pressed after exiting the BIOS?
This is a question from the archives. Adding replies is disabled.
I needed to install a system on an old computer.
The computer did not have a CD-ROM, and it was not interesting to install my own, and I had long been interested in how to divide my 8 Gb flash drive into several partitions. It was not possible to do this using conventional means, because... after creation Windows partitions refused to see the second section. I found a description about various methods for installing additional drivers for the second partition, but this did not suit me, because... This needs to be installed on each PC you connect to for the first time.
Therefore, I decided to devote Saturday to the interesting task of studying how flash drives work.
I learned a lot about what kind of chipsets there are, what to do with a flash drive if it is not detected by the system, where to look for recovery utilities programmatic method, and how to put the flash drive into test mode by shorting the legs on the chip. But we won’t go into all of this.
1) You need to find out the chipset manufacturer and values VID And PID.
This can be done by downloading and running the ChipGenius v3.0 utility
(be sure to write down or save the data that it shows, because in case of bad firmware, this will help you find the program you need)
2) Then go to the iFlash database page and enter VID or PID to the search bar.
Find out which programs are designed to work with your flash drive. (my flash drive had an SK6211 chip, and the program SK6211_20090227_BA was suitable for it)
3) If you have a different chip, not from Skymedi, then you don’t have to read further.
So:
A). We connect the flash drive to the USB connector of the PC.
b). Let's launch SK6211_20090227_BA.exe
V). In the utility, click --> Advanced-->in the window Password enter numbers 123456
and click on the Check button.
The windows will become active.
G). On the menu Code Bank ver. select the latest database. For some, the flash drive was detected in the program (lit up green, Ready) only after this.
d). Next - click Multi-Partition.
In this window: Upper left corner - check the box Enable CD-ROM, if you need to split the remainder of the CD-ROM, and split the part into 2 more partitions (i.e. make CD+flash+Flash), then move the engine - set the partition sizes.
Right top corner- check the box Enable CD-Rom Booting(make the CD-ROM bootable) and write the path to the ISO image. The size of the CD part is set automatically depending on the size of the image. I tried a 2.5 GB image, everything is fine.
e). Be sure to specify the parameter autorun counter- it is responsible for all the glitches associated with the disappearance of a flash CD after several downloads:
turns out autorun counter This is the number of times the flash CD will appear in the system.
If we write 10 (as stated in the instructions), then the flash CD will appear and work exactly 10 times the flash drive is connected.
In order for the image to work endlessly, you need to enter 255 (==unlimited) in this field
source: http://www.mydigit.net/read.php?tid=58732&uid=35139
and). Lun0 and Lun1 are partitions that will actually be seen as a flash drive. If the engine (see above) was not touched, there will be a CD + 1 flash partition, otherwise there will be a CD and 2 flash drives (the volume of each depends on the position of the engine in the upper left corner).
Here we install:
format - ( Fat or Fat32)
section name - ( Format Labe l).
The first Flash partition can be done - ( Fixed) (i.e. it will be defined not as flash, but as HDD),
and also block the partition from being overwritten - ( write protect), immediately writing to it necessary files, specifying the path to the folder with them (but I did not do this, because overwrite protection was not part of my needs).
Click OK and agree to the changes.
h). Next (in the previous window that appears after this, you can set VID And PID(if you want to change the name of the controller manufacturer and its type displayed in CHIP GENIUS - to determine the flash drive by the flashing utility in case of subsequent flashing it won't affect), Serial No. flash drives (any one is possible) and LED parameters ( LED) - blinking frequency and light intensity, parameter Curr leave equal 100 mA(it’s better not to put more, as far as we know, this is the maximum current current consumed by a USB flash drive).
It is better not to change all other parameters - I don’t know what they are responsible for.
And). Write down your profile name and click " Save"(save the profile), agree to the changes and close this window.
To). Firmware is only possible if the flash drive is in the database (see above).
In this case, it lights up green and it will say " READY".
Select the profile we saved and click AUTO-LLF(AUTO-LowLevel Format).
The flash drive lights up yellow" BUSY" - the rewriting process is in progress.
Notifies about its successful completion green color And " PASS". Congratulations!
Important tips!!!
- If the color before starting the firmware (after selecting the latest database of supported flash drives) is blue (NO Match) - then you are out of luck (the flash drive is not in the database), wait for the firmware update or look for it yourself, I found the right one the third time.
- If you need to overwrite a new image, be sure to first use Recovery utility Disk (or use the main utility to rewrite the controller firmware without creating a CD partition - uncheck the Enable CD-ROM and Enable CD-Rom Booting checkboxes, leave only the LUN0 (removeble) partition, and only then change it again as you need, otherwise an error may occur when flashing)
Thanks for all the instructions and tips:
Domrachev.Ivan,
AVP-720,
website flashboot.ru,
Chinese programmers who wrote programs for flashing.
