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

1. Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver X64 2017
2. Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver
3. Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver X64 Download

Windows supports multiple partitions only for hard disk drives identified as local (i.e. Contents:.RMB bit and USB drivesWindows recognizes USB flash drives as removable devices due to the presence of a special descriptor bit RMB (removable media bit) on each of the devices. If the system determines that RMB=1 when polling the connected device using StorageDeviceProperty function, it concludes that this device is a removable drive.

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

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

Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver X64 2017

Despite the fact that the utility Lexar BootIt is developed only for Lexar devices (Micron, Crucial), it can work with flash drives from other manufacturers. The BootIt utility supports all versions of Windows, starting from Windows XP and finishing with Windows 10.

Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver

The utility is guaranteed to work with Lexar flash drives. Judging by the reviews, the “Flip removable bit” function does not work on fast USB 3.0 flash drives. In addition, when flashing the controller, you can lose the warranty on the USB flash drive and the process can make it unworkable.You can download BootIt from Lexar website. Run exe elevated.

Select your USB flash from the list of devices. Press the button Flip Removable Bit. Save changes by clicking OK.Unplug and reconnect the device.

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

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

To do it open Device Manager and select the properties of your USB drive. On Details tab in the Device Instance Path setting, select and copy ( Ctrl + C) the code for the device instance.In our example this would be:USBSTORDisk&VenLinux&ProdFile-CDGadget&Rev3210ABCDEF&0Suppose we are going to install a driver on the 64-bit system.

To edit it, open cfadisk.inf in any text editor. We need the sections cfadiskdevice and cfadiskdevice.NTamd64.cfadiskdevice%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,IDEDiskTS64GCF40020101008cfadiskdevice.NTamd64%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,IDEDiskTS64GCF40020101008.

In the code of the device instance, the part after the second “” should be deleted (we delete ABCDEF&0 in our example).We get:cfadiskdevice%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,IDEUSBSTORDisk&VenLinux&ProdFile-CDGadget&Rev0000cfadiskdevice.NTamd64%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,IDEUSBSTORDisk&VenLinux&ProdFile-CDGadget&Rev0000Save the file.If the driver is installed on a 32-bit system, you have to download the corresponding archive, unzip it and open cfadisk.inf for editing. Find the section cfadiskdevice:cfadiskdevice%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,USBSTORDisk&VenLEXAR&ProdJDLIGHTNINGII&Rev1100%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,USBSTORDisk&VenJetFlash&ProdTS1GJF110&Rev0.00%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,USBSTORDISK&VEN&PRODUSBDISK2.0&REVPThen change the data in the last line, having specified the instance ID of our flash drive, i.e. In our example, we get:%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,USBSTORDisk&VenLEXAR&ProdJDLIGHTNINGII&Rev1100%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,USBSTORDisk&VenJetFlash&ProdTS1GJF110&Rev0.00%Microdrivedevdesc% = cfadiskinstall,USBSTORDisk&VenLinux&ProdFile-CDGadget&Rev0000. I have a SanDisk Cruzer Blade 16gb flash drive. Recently i used Rufus tool and formatted it using GPT settings to make windows 7 bootable USB. From then, it’s removable disk property is gone. It is identified as local disk every time i connect to my laptop.

I want to make it as a removable device again. I tried the suggestions from another website by installing some kind of filter drivers but it totally messed up. My Windows OS could not start and does start up repair. So i made system restore.

Without any of these problems, Anyone please help me with step by step instructions on how to do it. My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. See the end of this article here:Note: When I rebooted the first time, windows would not load, this was due to the driver being unsigned. When booting hit F8 to enter the bootloader, and choose to disable driver signing. Alternatively you can disable driver signing by doing the following:run-cmd.exeNow type the followingbcdedit.exe -set loadoptions DDISABLEINTEGRITYCHECKSpress Enter:bcdedit.exe -set TESTSIGNING ONpress Enter:When you reboot, you should find your USB or SDHC device listed as a fixed disk. You can now partition, make it a dynamic disk, install picky programs that wont run on a removable disk etc Reply. No mater what i do window reinforce driver signature at boot and there is no way to bypass this!

Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver X64 Download

I have tried it all!!! I don’t understand ms disk management! I wish to RAID0 USB sticks in order to have x2+ speed on that array for WinReadyBoost/eBooster on systems that have 4 GB RAM or less for internet browsing purposes! Browsers tends to kill user experience a lot with their RAM leak problems, huge RAM consumption’s and so on!

I even start to put 2 cheap 60 GB SSD in RAID0 so browsers do not kill my nerves! But seems to me that MS intent is forcing user to buy new hardware/new windows to have just as crappy experience with even crappier GUI on Win10! And just about everything that would have massive gain on performance is simply not supported! The above moded driver problem is that windows reinforces driver signature checking just about every time at boot no mater what i do! Solution for that problem would be driver loading where user would decide how to use it supported by microsoft! So user will not be limited! But sadly ms tends to reinforce their will and we are dumb enough to let them!

The other solution would be some sort RAID support in bios for USB as it is ”defacto” standard but this is pure wet dream! So why we user allow MS to decide how many performance we get on our computers and why we tolerate stupid MS limitations? For running MS OS newer enough hardware power and majority of middle end Home PC’s are acting choked like x286 with lack off just about everything! 8 GB RAM is pure minimum for running Chrome on x64 not to mention hard drives bottlenecks!

And hardware that ”overcomes” that limitations is expensive very and mostly over 1000 euro! The other problem is one can not upgrade memory it is already upgraded! And that’s the problem with MS!

We should all go to Linux! The other solution would be we go to store and for same amount of money start demanding some sort of home supercomputer in order not to be choked by/off MS OS Browsers and so on then users would not pursue such idea/solutions!!! Every good damn Windows is hardware performance killer and we then add Chrome Browser and must be AIO security solutions then choked system is announced by it self!!! In the future we will had even faster USB do we can RAID USB devices approved and allowed by MS i doubt! Ok so i may be screwed but i had to checks here.

So i did the thing and it worked great until i pulled out the usb like an idiot. It wouldnt start up no matter what i did.

It kept bringing me to the menus about troublshooting. I went to the cmd page and deleted the cfadisk.sys and cfadisk.infamd. And i thought it worked but now im stuck in a infinite restarting loop where there is no repair mode, options, or anything. The boot key doesnt do anything and i dont know what to do. Thought I had found THE guide for this problem. Followed it all, ended up not being able to boot Windows.So I issued the BCD commands and restarted.

Nothing changed. Boots into the Automatic Repair prompt over and over. Investigated the BCD store, both options are active and enabled.I was however able to get it to boot by selecting Startup Options, letting it reboot, then selecting Option 7 to disable driver signing checks. The end result was as intended with my microSD now listed as a local disk.However, this is certainly not a permanent solution as the recovery sequence would need to be repeated at every bootThis shouldn’t be so damn difficult.

Especially when manufacturers release laptop/tablets with 32gb eMMC A second “hard disk” is a necessity! I wasn’t able to get any of the Lexar’s drives working. In fact, I bricked two of ’em. However, I did have luck with other USB sticks using a combination of two tools. The first is a utility called GetFlashInfo from antspec.com/USBFlashInfo.After that returns certain information about the USB stick, there’s a Russian website I went out to the for the utilities.Visit & download at your own risk. Win10 Defender said there were viruses on the downloads.

I went to the site and downloaded the utilities on a burner laptop connected to a cellular hotspot. The utilities worked. Bentley v8i select series 3.

Running the USB sticks through various systems and malware checks, they came back clean. I suspect due to the nature of the utility’s code (“changing low level hardware info”), that triggered some malware alerts during the post-download scan. Again, this worked on about 50% of all the various USB sticks I tried (Lexar part of the non-working group).Your mileage may vary. Thank you OP for a fantastic trick.

The Hitachi Microdrive Filter trick worked for my windows tab. I successfully converted my microSD card into basic disk. Here are the details:Host: Win 10 Home (ver 1809) 32 bitCard: MyMemory 256 gb microSD ( )Procedure:1. Open the Device Manager and locate the microSD card under ‘Storage controllers’ section.

Extract microSD card’s ‘Device Instance Path’.2. Update the appropriate cfadisk.inf as OP instructed. In my case it’s in x86 folder. Then update the driver.

Windows shouts at you, but just ignore. This made the microSD appear under ‘Disk drives’ in Device Manager. Now I my microSD card appears in two places with two distinct device instance paths. There is a yello exlamation mark next to disk drive instance saying that I need to reboot for the new device to work properly.3. My machine being x86, it did not complain about driver signing during the boot.4. After rebooting get the ‘Device Instance Path’ of the new disk drive.

With the changed instance again update the cfadisk.inf file.5. Again update the driver. This time it is disk drive’s driver. As usual ignore window’s shoutings for unsigned driver.6. After successful updation, the disk drive’s label changes from removable to basic. To check you can go to:Device Manager – New Disk drive – Properties – Volume – PopulateThe disk type will be basic.Or you can use diskpart.7. Reboot (just in case) and enjoy.Thanks!-Ninad Reply.

Judging by the comments left here, most people ran into all sorts of problems with the Hitachi Microdrive method, so I’m going to be a coward and not attempt it! Using the Lexar BootIt tool method sounds much simpler, but finding a Flash Drive that will work with it appears to be the big problem. @ Neville,This is from an article I wrote for a modding site around Jan./2014 –“ this does not work on every flash drive. It does work on every Lexar drive, i have 3 that it works on.

It works on my Sony 4 gig, it works on some beat-up no name 1 gig somebody gave me, it works on my Crucial 2gig but not on my Patriot 4gig.”NOTE – I believe it only works on 2.0 vs flash drives. There is a way to generate a text file in Notepad that the Registry will refer to to achieve the “RMB=0” results. (Removable Media Bit = No)BUT – I can’t find that file or the instructions, ATM.I do know that modifying the Hitachi driver files works on W7x64 and W10x64.

I use the BCDEdit app and check the “Use unsigned drivers in Wx64” box which triggers it at every start/restart.I had a discussion with the developer of Rufus (great tool) the other day and he told me the is no way to do what myself/others are doing, ha. Hello,Congrats for that tutorial, but on my side I did not try anything yet because what I want to do is about a Sata internal hard drive, but detected as usb And you’ll see it is unbelievable. I’ve never seen such a thing before.I’ve bought a T11 mini pc where there is a dedicated sata port under the box to insert a hard drive.The system is already installed on pc on an internal flash drive with windows 10 pro (64go only) in Uefi mode (GPT partitionned).The external port is supposed to be to extend the size of the OS.