How to partition a flash drive. Creating, deleting and working flash drive partitions. Creating partitions on a flash drive

" OK »

So, at the very beginning of the USB flash drive (H:), we created a small 336 MB partition formatted in the FAT32 file system.

• In order for the flash drive to be bootable in UEFI systems, as well as in a regular BIOS, an MBR with the boot loader code BOOTMGR (Windows NT 6.x) and an active partition with a PBR (partition boot record) BOOTMGR must be created on it. Download and run the program Bootice, prepare a flash drive for installing the operating system bootloader on it.

In the main window of the Bootice program, select our flash drive and click on the “Process MBR” button

Check the box “Windows NT 6.x MBR” and click on the button “ Installation/Configuration»

"Windows NT 6.x MBR"

"OK"

"Close"

In the main window of the Bootice program, select our flash drive and click on the button"PBR Processing"

Check the box " BOOTMGR Boot Record" and click on the button " Installation/Configuration»

"OK"

"OK"

"Close"

"Partition Management"

Select with the left mouse button the first partition on the 336 MB flash drive, FAT32 and click on the “Activate” button

"OK"

The first partition on the flash drive is 336 MB, FAT32 is now active and you can create a bootloader for the operating system on it.

Create a bootloader on a flash drive

At the administrator command line, enter the command:

bcdboot G :\windows /s H: /f all

(which means - create a bootloader for Windows 10 located on the hard drive partition (G:) and place this bootloader on a flash drive, drive letter (H:)),

parameter /f all stands for - including boot files for a computer with UEFI or BIOS!

Now let's look at the contents of the boot configuration data (BCD) file, enter the command:

bcdedit -store H:\efi\microsoft\boot\bcd(where H: the letter of our flash drive). As you can see, the UEFI boot loader was created on a flash drive (H:) for Windows 10, located on the disk partition (partition G:).

Our flash drive now has two partitions and the first partition is 336 MB, FAT32 is bootable, but if you open the window“This computer”, then only this particular partition will be available, the second partition (29 GB) with our files will not be available. Let's make it accessible using the familiar Bootice program (the flash drive will remain bootable).

In the main program window, select our USB flash drive and click on the “ Partition management»

Left-click on the second partition on the flash drive, size 29 GB, and click on the “Set available” button

The second partition on the flash drive, size 29 GB, became available.

"Close"

In the window “This Computer” is now available for the second partition on the flash drive (size 29 GB) with our files.

If you now restart your computer and enter the boot menu, then select our flash drive to boot,

then Windows 10 will load, for which we created the bootloader on the flash drive.

Let's enter the command on the command line:

bcdedit

The boot repository will open, in which you can see that the bootloader for Windows 10 installed on the drive (C:) is located on the first partition of the flash drive (336 MB) or on partition 7 ( partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume7)

Important to know: A bootloader created in this way on a flash drive is universal and includes boot files for a computer with UEFI enabled and a regular BIOS, and can load Windows 10 installed on a computer or laptop with the UEFI interface enabled, as well as a regular BIOS. To prove my words, I will enable the UEFI interface in my BIOS

And I will enter the boot menu, as we see, our bootable flash drive is a UEFI flash drive and can boot in UEFI mode.

I select a flash drive to boot, boot into Windows 10 and enter the command in the command line:

bcdedit (as we can see from the screenshot, Windows 10 no longer launches the winload.exe file, but winload.efi. Why?)

You all know that Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 have 2 startup files, these are winload.exe and winload.efi.

We created an EFI bootloader and an MBR bootloader on our flash drive, A bootloader is a small program thatstarts (transfers control) to the BIOS, then the bootloader(loads) the operating system.

BIOS works by device (hard drives, external HDDs, flash drives, floppy drives)

If we specify our flash drive in Legacy mode to the BIOS, the BIOS will transfer control to the MBR loader, which will launch the winload.exe file.

If we specify our flash drive in UEFI mode to the BIOS, the BIOS will transfer control to the EFI bootloader, which will launch the winload.efi file.

In other words, in our case, the layout of the hard drive (MBR or GPT) on which Windows 10 is installed does not matter.

That is, in simple words, the second Windows 10 operating system installed on our computer boots both in a regular BIOS and in UEFI, although it is installed on an MBR disk.

Also, our flash drive with the bootloader is seen by a laptop with the UEFI interface and Secure Boot enabled, and this once again proves that the bootloader on our flash drive is capable of launching operating systems installed on the MBR (regular BIOS) and GPT (UEFI interface) disk.

Good day to all. Today I want to talk about a hot topic that concerns flash drives. Having dealt with the question, how to break a flash drive on the sections, I came to the conclusion that this could be useful to many, which means I need to write about it. You can divide a flash drive into parts for different purposes. The best, in my opinion, is to use one partition for the OS or LiveCD, and the other for storing various files. The most interesting thing is that there is more than one way to divide a flash drive. For example, this can be done in the Windows 10 Creators Update, but this was not possible before. I’ll also tell you about other methods.

How to split a flash drive using Windows 10

Before describing the method, I want to say that in versions earlier than 1703 (Creators Update), you may not see the second section of the flash drive due to the characteristics of the operating system, but this is just my opinion, especially since I have this version and everything works fine on it. As other users say, there is no second partition on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.

Go to the “This PC” folder and right-click on the flash drive. Now we will format it into the NTFS file system. If there is data on it, I recommend transferring it to a hard drive. If you don’t want to do this, you can convert the flash drive to any file system without losing data.

We launch the PowerShell console, to do this, enter the name of this tool in the search, click on it with the mouse and use run as administrator. For me, the utility is located in the Start menu if you press Win+X (or right-click on the Start menu) instead of the command line.

Enter the command to convert the flash drive:

convert E: /FS:NTFS

In this case, the letter (E:) indicates a flash drive; yours may be different. Be careful with this.

If you don’t want to bother entering commands through the command line or PowerShell, you can format the drive as standard.

When the flash drive has the NTFS file system, go to the Disk Management utility, it is located in the Win + X menu.

The required window opens, where we right-click on the USB drive and select the “Shrink volume” item.

The following window opens. There, select the required amount of space that you will take from the flash drive. Click “Compress”.

An unallocated partition appears in the Disk Management window. Click on it with the mouse and select the “Create simple volume” option.

Okay, we split the flash drive into two sections. But, as I already said, all sections will be displayed correctly in the Creators Update.

How to partition a flash drive using the command line

Other methods have arrived. Now I'll show you how to do this on the command line. True, the drive will lose the files, so they need to be transferred to another drive.

Launch an elevated command prompt and enter the following commands:

• diskpart – launch the Diskpart utility;
• list disk – display existing partitions;
• select disk 1 – select partition number 1, yours may be different;
• clean – cleaning the flash drive;
• create partition primary size=5000 – divide the flash drive into a 5 GB partition;
• create partition primary – create a primary partition;
• format fs=fat32 quick – formatting in FAT32;
• assign letter=e – assign a letter to the section.
  

Approximately the same can be done using third-party utilities, for example, AOMEI Partition Assistant.

How to partition a flash drive using WinSetupFromUSB?

The next method also leads to erasing files; be sure to save them to another drive. We launch the WinSetupFromUSB utility and make sure that the flash drive is selected and not another drive.

Click on the “Bootice” button, after which the following window opens.

The “Destination Disk” section must contain a flash drive, not an HDD. Now click on the “Parts Manage” item.

We get to the window where we click on the “Active” button, so the flash drive will have the opportunity to be divided into sections. Now click on the “RePartitioning” item.

Next, put a checkbox next to the “USB-HDD mode (Multi-Partitions)” section and select a flash drive from the drop-down menu. This option will allow you to reprogram the controller drivers so that the system considers it a hard drive. Now click “OK”.

Click OK.

To assemble a flash drive, click ReFormat USB Disk and select the same Multi-Partitions item.

For those sections where the volume was set, enter 0 and remove the marks. Click OK.

An unallocated partition will appear in the window, about which there is no information. Then click on the “Format this part” option. The usual Windows format window will open, where you do a quick format with the desired file system and label. Although in Windows 10 this action is not necessary, everything is done automatically, and also if you have the latest version of the utility.

You can make sure that the flash drive has regained its original capacity and will again be recognized as a USB drive.

Divide a flash drive into partitions using BootIT

A simple utility that allows you to transfer our flash drive first to an HDD, and then do whatever you want with it. You can download it from here.

If BootIT does not start in the usual way, then we use compatibility mode with Windows XP.

The utility is so simple that you practically don’t need to do anything. You need to select the desired device and click on the “Flip Removable Bit” button.

Then the program will tell you that the USB drive needs to be removed and then reconnected.

To make sure that the flash drive has really become a HDD, go to the Disk Management utility and right-click on the flash drive. If the “Delete Volume” option is active, then we have done everything correctly and can now divide the flash drive into partitions.

So far I have talked about the most effective methods. You can offer something of your own, and I, in turn, will try to find other ways. I hope this article will help you split your flash drive into sections.

Just a few years ago, the hard drives of the average PC had a smaller capacity than flash drives have today. In this regard, there is a temptation to split the flash drive into several logical drives - partitions, and use them as an additional hard drive. The problem, however, is that the corresponding software, much less tools built into Windows, do not exist.

Another thing is Linux, which allows you to create partitions on any drive, regardless of its physical nature. If we are talking about working under an OS manufactured by Microsoft, the only way out is to use modified drivers or utilities from the manufacturer of the flash drive itself.

Hitachi Microdrive Driver

This driver was created by Hitachi, and its latest version can be downloaded from the company's website. The driver allows you to change the device type of a flash drive at the Windows level from a removable disk to a hard disk. Hitachi Microdrive is only compatible with 32-bit versions of Windows.

Device Instance ID

We connect the flash drive to the computer, go to the device manager, you can get to the manager in the following ways:

« Start" -> "Search programs and files" (WIN + R) -> enter devmgmt.mscor Right-click on the “My Computer” icon -> “Properties” -> “Device Manager” tab

Then in the list of devices we find the flash drive, double-click on the icon and then:

“Information” -> item “Property” -> look for and copy the line “Device instance code”.

In our case, the line looks like this:

USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_UFD_2.0&Prod_Silicon-Power16G&Rev_PMAP\12021152061E6C219001714008F&0

Now we can move on to editing the cfadisk.inf file

Open the cfadisk.inf file and edit the 25th line. We replace the line with the copied value, as shown in the figure, after “cfadisk_install ,”.

Driver update

Now all that remains is to install the updated cfadisk.inf driver for the flash drive. We will update the driver there in the “Device Manager”, in the properties of the flash drive, select “Update driver” and then “Search and install the driver manually”.

After installing the driver, the flash drive will be recognized as a hard drive and you can create partitions on it.

Converting a flash drive into a hard drive using the utility - BooIT

The BooIT application operates in a similar way, only it does not replace the driver, but modifies the software installed on the flash drive - thanks to this, the system begins to “see” it as a hard drive. Using BooIT is simple.

First you need to select the flash drive in the “Devices” field of the main program window and click “Flip Removable Bit”.

Then you will need to remove the flash drive and insert it again. Now the flash drive should be defined not as a “Removable disk”, but as a “Hard disk”. If everything worked out, you can proceed to creating partitions on the flash drive.

Partitioning with Windows

You can split a flash drive into the required number of partitions using Windows tools.

Select “Storage devices” in “Computer Management” or “Start” -> “Search programs and files” and enter the command diskmgmt.msc

Partitioning using the program – Acronis

We launch the program, select the flash drive in the “List of Basic Disks”.

Right-click on the flash drive and select “Split Volume” from the context menu.

Set the sizes of the new sections.

Partitioning using flash drive manufacturer utilities

Some well-known manufacturers of USB flash drives have special utilities that implement partitioning into several logical partitions. For example, Transcend has mFormat. However, this utility only works with some flash drive models and there is no guarantee of full compatibility with all common operating systems.

Thus, a simple and effective solution to the problem of dividing a flash drive into partitions is a matter of the future. Perhaps not so distantly, if the trend towards increasing the volume of flash drives does not stop.

Often, users buy a USB flash drive pre-divided into two or more sectors and do not know how to make a single partition out of this mixture. There are also often cases when the user would like to independently divide the flash drive into several parts. In this article we will look at both problems and figure out how to combine or partition a flash drive.

A technique for dividing or merging partitions on a flash drive.

It is important to know that a split USB drive in this way will only be visible on the computer where the manipulations that will be described below directly took place. Other computers will only see the first partition of the media. An extra piece of knowledge will never hurt us.

So, we have a flash drive, there is a lot of free space on it, let’s say it’s a multiboot drive, and we can, if necessary, install any of the provided operating systems from it.

It is problematic to partition a drive using internal Windows tools, let's go to the Disk Management snap-in. To do this, right-click on “My Computer” (if you have Windows 7) or “This PC” (if you have Windows 10) and select “Manage”, then go to disk management.

We have our removable device in front of us; there is simply no way to divide the flash drive into sections. But you can still do this using a special driver.

Editing files

We are interested in the ID of our flash drive; you can find it in the device manager by calling the context menu and selecting “Properties”. Next, you need to go to the “Details” tab and find the “Equipment ID” line in the drop-down menu. We need the very first line, copy it and save it in any text editor, for example, Notepad. We minimize both the text editor and the device manager.

We need a driver for Hitachi Microdrive external drives. It will help the system recognize the USB drive as a hard drive, then we can delete partitions and create new ones like on a regular hard drive. The archive is freely available on the Internet, available for both 32-bit and 64-bit systems.

So, we downloaded the archive, unpack it, open the folder. We are interested in a file with the extension “.inf”, call up the context menu, select “Open with” and in the window that appears we find any text editor, for example, “Notepad”.

We need to edit one line in the section which is shown in the screenshot.

After the line there are three grouped lines, we need the last one. Open a notepad with the saved ID and copy part of the line after the expression “USBSTOR\”, paste this phrase into our text file after the expression “DISK&VEN_”. It is impossible to give clear instructions here, because everyone has their own USB drive ID, so everyone will insert it differently. To make it clearer, below are screenshots of “How it was” and “How it became.” Don't make a mistake, otherwise nothing will work. Save the edited file.

Update the device driver

Go to the device manager again. We find our device, right-click on it and select “Update drivers”. Select the following interface elements:

• Perform a search on this computer;
• Select from the list of already installed drivers;
• Install from disk;

Click the “Browse” button and find our driver with the file that we just edited. Confirm your choice and click the “Next” button. We will be warned twice about the danger of what is happening, we ignore the warnings, click “Yes” and “Install this driver anyway.” After a short wait, the driver finishes installation, close the window and restart the computer.

How to split a flash drive into 2 disks? Now our computer sees the USB drive as a local drive. Therefore, we can divide it into several sections. Open the Disk Management snap-in. The disk was removable, but became the main one. Next is the standard procedure for dividing the drive into volumes. Right-click on the desired volume and select “Shrink Volume”, specify the desired size, and free up space. We mark out this space: right-click on the unmarked area and select “Create a new volume”, follow the instructions of the wizard. If you have a desire to return everything back, then we transfer everything that we managed to save on the second partition to another place, for example, to one of the hard drive partitions. We delete the volume and connect the area to the first section of the flash drive.

Now we can use the first partition as a multi-boot partition, and on the second, for example, store music. Both parts are autonomous and do not interfere with each other.

The natural question is how to get everything back? Very simple. Open Device Manager, find our flash drive, right-click and select “Properties”. Next, go to the “Driver” tab and click the “Roll Back” button. After such manipulations, the drive will return to its original state.

Conclusion

We figured out how to split a flash drive into two sections, and you can also combine its sections, no matter how many there are. As it turned out, the manipulations are not at all complicated; the point is to change the “attitude” of the system to the carrier. The flash drive supposedly became a hard drive, and after that we can either split the flash drive into several partitions or combine 2 disks.

The main problem is that Windows, by default, defines all flash drives and memory cards as removable drives (which, however, is completely fair) and does not allow them to be split into several logical drives, create additional partitions, and perform other similar actions allowed for hard drives . A driver for external drives from Hitachi allows you to bypass this limitation. You can download it here:

Hitachi.Microdrive.zip (2,965 bytes)

Our task is to ensure that the flash drive or memory card is recognized by the system as a hard drive. Connect your flash drive or memory card. In my case, it will be the most common nameless flash drive of 4 gigabytes. In Disk Management it is shown as removable media, everything is correct.

%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install, USBSTOR\General_USB_Flash_Disk

And replace the highlighted text with the code of your USB device. Save your changes. In the properties window, go to the "Driver" tab and click on the "Update..." button.