Jump to content
Corsair Community

Flip removable media bit (RMB)


Askarii

Recommended Posts

I own a Corsair Flash Voyager 16gb UFD.

With that big a drive I want to partition it, but windows refuses to see more then one partition at the same time.

I know I could use LINUX, which sees all partitions, but unfortunately I'm a windows user and all the computers I work with (university, job, home) only have windows installed.

 

I read about Lexar's BootIt program which can make a UFD seen as a non-removable media, hence allowing you to have multiple partitions.

 

The option of modifying the registry in windows isn't viable, since I would have to do so with EVERY computer I use, and for some of those I do not have the administrative privileges to do so...

 

There-fore, I now ask Corsair Tech if there is a utility that functions like Lexar's BootIt and that works on my UFD.

 

 

thank you

Link to comment
Share on other sites

this is the first time ive ever heard of anyone partitioning or want to partition a flash drive.

in the great scheme of things 16Gb is tiny.

im not picking on you, im just curious as to what reason someone would have to do so? the storage is on a silicon wafer not a platter like a HDD subject to physical damage, so that rules that out. im stumped :confused: why not just create 2 root folders home and work/school and keep the appropriate files in the sorted folders?

 

thanks,

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For various reasons:

Hidden encryption of certain data, running bugged codes (want to avoid having it overflow the whole drive).

True crypt is great, but it doesn't allow me to have seperate partitions. instead i have encrypted folders, but those can be deleted (something I want to avoid).

 

Another simple reason would be booting different Linux distro's.

 

16 gb is in fact huge for me, I don't store media files.

at most I've used up 20 gb of a HDD in my whole life :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • 1 month later...

You could try to manually create the partitions.

For instance try "Beeblebrox NT" http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/

Windows will only show the first partition, but with some luck

TrueCrypt will see all of them. Extra super security. :-)

 

 

CHDK and Stereo Data Maker (3D Photos with Cannon Cameras) also need multiple partitions to make SDHC cards work properly. There are some hints here: http://chdk.setepontos.com/index.php?action=printpage;topic=255.0

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
  • Corsair Employee
I am sorry our flash drives may not support this, and if you do as some might suggest in using another manufacturers utility to flip the remove able Bit it may result in a dead drive. So I am sorry but I would not suggest it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sorry our flash drives may not support this, and if you do as some might suggest in using another manufacturers utility to flit the remove able Bit it may result in a dead drive. So I am sorry but I would not suggest it.

 

Fair enough. I haven't managed to get the implied software to work, so, even if it doesn't kill your drive, it is seemingly a waste of time. Sorry for the possibly harmful suggestion! :bigeyes:

 

Is there any chance you could prod a software guy and ask if there's a chance he could whip up a little toggle switch application for this? I love my little drive, and, assuming the RMB is the cause and solution of my current little problems, it would kick an even greater amount of butt. :cool:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am sorry but no there is no utility and no plan to replace one ATM.

 

No worries! I'll probably start a thread in awhile with the project I'm working on, might be helpful to some people. It won't be about any RMB stuff, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 months later...

I did find a solution (a while ago in fact) Sorry for not coming back on the subject.

 

I use a Hitachi HDD driver, thus making the usb flash drive appear as a removable HDD. It works great, i can do everything i wanted to (see initial post).

 

The only down side is that windows doesn't treat it as a hot-removable drive, so you have to carefully "safely remove hardware and eject media" every time.

 

it's not much of a drawback considering what it allows me to do.

 

 

cheers!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Hello everyone,

 

This is my first post on this site and I could not help my self but reply to this old thread.

 

I am sorry our flash drives may not support this,

 

Officially? No, non-officially? may be :)

 

Ok, this is obviously not officially supported however I used Lexar's BootIt utility on a Corsair 32GB Voyager (non-gt) and it works! I tried different drives before such as Transcend 2GB and Sandisk Cruzer 4GB and it did not work. I tried it on the Corsair 32GB Voyager (NON-GT), and it worked for me. The drive is now seen as a 'fixed' disk. Originally when I plugged in it appeared under the removable media group in 'Computer' and now it appears in the same group as the hard drives.

 

I created 3 partitions. Now every time I plug the drive in, I get 3 separate drive letters. Each partition is about 10GB. The first partition has Win7Rescue installed (Live Windows 7) along with some Linux distributions (booting directly from ISO thx to GRUB4DOS).

 

The second partition has a converted original Windows 7 StartUp disk into a USB one. This is a standard Windows 7 rescue disk that Windows 7 lets you create but I manually converted it into a USB bootable one. I wanted to have both versions on the same flash drive and the only way to do this as far as I know is to have two separate partitions since each partition must have its own BOOTMGR with BCD. I use GRUB4DOS to load BOOTMGR via chainloader.

 

So to answer your question, perhaps officially this is not supported but as I said I have tried it on the above drive and it worked for me. I don't know if there are any side effects but so far everything seems to be fine. I will be considering getting another Voyager and I urge Corsair to seriously consider this feature and officially support it as techs like us need it!

 

Corsair, please invest some time into this. It's really a great feature to have! Create your own version of BootIt that will officially work on your drives. You are already more than half way there. Lexar's utility works on at least on of your drives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Corsair Employee

TechWR

I am sorry but there is no official support for this from Microsoft and until that happens I doubt we would have the resources to address this sorry. You are welcome to use anything you like on the drive as long as you do not modify the drive the warranty is still valid. However, I would mention that we did test this and several other utilities and found in most cases the drives became corrupt so make sure that you back up your data on another drive before attempting this.

 

Basher52

The "GT" Version is using another type of controller and it may or may not work but what I posted previously to TechWR still applies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Hi everybody,

 

I recently got a Voyager 32GB GTR.

Now, I tried to use BootIT to "convert" it .. but nothing happened.

 

I Just used the "flip the Removeable . . ." function, nothing else, but unfortunately no changes were made. even after replugging the device.

 

As you can imagin a 32GB Device is for IT-Professional reasons a bit unhandly.

 

So, did anyone get the RMB-Thing to work on a Corsair Voyager 32 GB GTR? and give me a hint? I will test everything to get this running.. a selfcoded tool.. some tools to pay for, whatever.. but this feature would be extremeley great for the IT staff in our Team!

 

@Corsair Staff..

As other Manufacturers are able to implement this highly helpfull feature to switch the RMB, you should have a try on this. make it a 5 € more expensive and out the software onto the device. the IT-Staff out there in the world will

be very pleased to use your devices ;-)

 

Because thats the only feature that is missing with the voyager sticks.

 

As I thought it would be working with my high quality GTR stick i will have to give this device back. very sad because it is a very nice and fast device.

 

I.A.: Can anyone give me a reason why corsair does not implement such a feature? is it a political thing?a product thing? just cannot think of any reasons...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Corsair Employee
We will pass your request/suggestion on to our Flash Product manager but at this time we do not offer a utility for this purpose. And I am sorry but as I stated before until Microsoft offers official support to make removable devices Boot able I doubt we would pursue that feature.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi everybody,

 

I recently got a Voyager 32GB GTR.

Now, I tried to use BootIT to "convert" it .. but nothing happened.

 

I've got the same stick, and I have come to the conclusion that the GTR series uses a different memory controller, one of those that isn't compatible with the bootit utility.

 

So, did anyone get the RMB-Thing to work on a Corsair Voyager 32 GB GTR? and give me a hint?

 

Nope, I've tried high and low and it'll never work.

 

However... all is not lost. The limitations appear to be Windows ONLY. That's right - DOS, OSX, 'nix, BSD, whatever, all will quite happily let you partition your drive and - gasp - see all the partitions. Partition Magic for DOS works quite well for this if you're used to it. Note that those OSes will still see it as a removable drive.

 

In fact, Windows itself will do so too - provided you use commandline-fu to use disktool. It still won't see them all though.

 

My 32 gigger has 3 partitions - 20Gb data, 10 Gb OSX portable, and the remainder is a DOS emergency partition with assorted tools. I can boot off either of the two OS partitions by marking the one I want active.

 

I.A.: Can anyone give me a reason why corsair does not implement such a feature? is it a political thing?a product thing? just cannot think of any reasons...

 

I think its a microsoft thing. Restrictions for getting validated for that silly readyboost nonsense or something. No other OS has this limitation.

 

Plus, I seriously doubt its is Corsair that is doing the restricting - try the manufacturer of the memory controller being used... samsung, hitachi, whoever.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats funny, cause readyboost is the whole reason I started looking into this. I wanted it segregated, and like on hdds partitions seemed perfect. Created two, the second never showed in win7, so I thought no go. Then I was a work (I have the unfortunate circumstance of having to work on a powerpro mac, lame) but both partitions showed. So the hunt was on, and eventually I solved it. I say if you have to have multiple-partition USB stick in windows, trade/sell your gtr and find a stick that will work with the bit setter. I know the gtr is all awesome and yellow, but the gt is hella fast too and only a slighty less awesome red :) . There's just something about breaking stuff up with partitions that is so much better than simply different directories. Gotta have a nice neat desktop, gotta have a neat well organized USB stick, OCD for the win.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats funny, cause readyboost is the whole reason I started looking into this.

 

Don't quote me on that, just a theory. Never bothered to look into it - too many other irritations in Windows that take priority. :p

 

I know the gtr is all awesome and yellow, but the gt is hella fast too and only a slighty less awesome red :) .

 

I hear ya, but a) the GT drives over 8 Gb (from reading elsewhere on this very forum) don't see the same speed levels that the sub-4s do, b) no high capacity drives, and c) can't buy them here in Indonesia anymore, unfortunately. I have one such 4Gb stick and used to love it, but the connector has become unreliable. Have to hold it in place. What's the RMA situation with indonesia, anyone know?

 

There's just something about breaking stuff up with partitions that is so much better than simply different directories. Gotta have a nice neat desktop, gotta have a neat well organized USB stick, OCD for the win.

 

Hear hear!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Another idea:

 

I wanted to delete the partition on my Flash Voyager GTR so I could use HDTach on it, if you use the Ultimate Boot CD to start up Ranish Partition Manager and you can modify the partitions on your drive however you like. You probably need to have "USB Legacy Storage Mode" or whatever it's called turned on in your BIOS though.

 

I know there's been some concern about "bricking" the GTR drives by changing the removable media bit, but I just used this and re-partitioned it and formatted it back to exFAT and it still works fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...