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Partition a USB drive

TheRaiderNation

TheRaiderNation

Spartan
I've been trying to figure out if its possible to partition a USB drive (specifically an 8GB Patriot Xporter XT), and so far I've came up with nothing. The closest I've come was coming across a tool that was supposed to flip the fixed bit on the USB drive to allow me to partition the drive with disk management, but that didn't work.

The reason I want to do this is I want to have a bootable linux partition on it, and another for storage. Problem with doing that with out two partitions is that linux seems to only be able to create a bootable drive with FAT32. FAT32 doesn't support file sizes over 4GB -_-. And I might need to move a file bigger than 4GB sometime in the future. and I don't want to have to deal with 7zip the file.

To clear everything up, I want two partitions
1) FAT32 with bootable Ubuntu 10.10
2) NTFS (Storage)
 
Hellcat

Hellcat

Contributor
Since you say "NTFS", you want to use a patitioned USB drive on Windows.

With USB drives mounting as "removable" there is only one word: forget it!
Windows does not support (=want) that. Windows only supports multiple partitions on fixed drives (USB HDDs and such).

MacOS and Linux support partitioning USB (removable) drives just fine, only Windows fails at that.

Further more, if you partition a USB drive using MacOS or Linux and then plug it into Windows, you (i.e. Windows) will only see the first partition.
 
TheRaiderNation

TheRaiderNation

Spartan
Yea I read some stuff about that too, windows can be a bitch sometimes... And when I say ntfs, I don't mean that particularly just any format that supports file sizes bigger than 4GB. And I've been thinking about just doing it through linux. Say I did partition through linux and made the first partition the storage NTFS, and the second FAT32, would it still be a bootable drive? Would the BIOS see the second partition?
 
Hellcat

Hellcat

Contributor
Depends on the BIOS, but definitaly worth a try.

Don't forget to set the boot partition "active" - I keep missing out that bit all the time and then wonder why it doesn't boot at all xD
 
TheRaiderNation

TheRaiderNation

Spartan
Tried it and it worked. Only thing is that the Live Boot partition does seem to be slower than if I had just one big FAT32 partition. But whatever good enough for now.
 
LocutusEstBorg

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
You just need to change one registry key to make Windows detect removable disks as external harddisks. Then partitions work and you can even partition them in Disk Management. Google it.
 
Josey Wales

Josey Wales

Evil Poptart
Torch said:
You just need to change one registry key to make Windows detect removable disks as external harddisks. Then partitions work and you can even partition them in Disk Management. Google it.
Click to expand...

Probably would have been more helpful to cite this information legitimately.
 
Hellcat

Hellcat

Contributor
Torch said:
You just need to change one registry key to make Windows detect removable disks as external harddisks. Then partitions work and you can even partition them in Disk Management. Google it.
Click to expand...
Link, or it didn't happen.

This rumor holds itself up steadiely, but I haven't seen only one installation where this mysterious registry edit worked.
Though, I'd like to be proven wrong as I'd like to use it as well, so please, prove us wrong :)
 
LocutusEstBorg

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
The driver appears to be legit and used for many Microdrives by Seagate, Sony, Hitachi etc. Microdrives have a CF interface and are usually connected to a PC via a USB CF adapter. The problem was the CF readers make make them appear as a removable disks when they are actually harddisks. The drivers for these Microdrivers are USB filter drivers that mask the removable bit. According to the Hitachi support website the drivers are now integrated into Windows.

I guess all that needs to be done is locate the .inf in System32 and add the PID&VID of the USB stick to it.

---------- Post added at 02:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 PM ----------

Yes the old driver is compatible with Vista x64.
http://download.cnet.com/Hitachi-Microdrive/3000-2122_4-130948.html

This guy pretty much confirms it still works.
http://www.shengton.co.cc/2009/11/make-windows-vista-see-your-flash-drive-as-local-disk/
 
Hellcat

Hellcat

Contributor
Sounds interesting, but far to much work for a lazycat like me.

I'll just stick to USB HDDs for partitioning - or using a different OS.
 
Hellcat

Hellcat

Contributor
"Finding the right .INF" and "Finding VID and PID of the own drive" is the parts that are weighting too heavy for the poor kitty ;)

Actually it's only finding the right .INF, getting the IDs for the USB stuff is kinda easy.
 
LocutusEstBorg

LocutusEstBorg

Active Member
Don't need to find the INF like I initially said. Just edit the INF in that download. You need the preformatted device string containing PID & VID from registry. Don't find it yourself! You're making it seem like some big hack...
 
Hellcat

Hellcat

Contributor
Fork.... now you got me all hooked up xD
Might actually end up trying this when I got some time....
 
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