CD-partitions on a flash drive allow you to boot without problems on a PC, where booting from a regular flash drive (With Public- flash drive partition) impossible. Download from CD-area of ​​a flash drive tends to work everywhere.

But it should be understood that using a flash drive as a boot device from BIOS, is not the direct purpose of this controller function.

BUT main function CDROM- areas so that a specific flash drive manufacturer can place the necessary software for encryption, virus protection, or just some advertising information there.

Therefore, the successful outcome of loading any component, as from a normal CD-actuator, mainly depends on the compatibility of the specific controller with specific motherboard on which you are loading.

WHICH CONTROLLERS ARE BEST SUITABLE

I personally, for use as LiveUSB and reinstallation Windows, I recommend only controllers SMI and Phison, because they are most compatible with older motherboards.

At SMI-chips, the highest loadability from under BIOS showed models SM3257AA and those older (for example SM3257ENAA and SM3257ENLT) .

FROM Phison, problems of a slightly different order, which are only indirectly related to the efficiency of loading. All controllers can be conditionally divided into two groups, in the first the so-called PS2XXX (for example PS2232 and PS2239) , and in the second PS2251-XX(for example PS2251-38 and PS2251-03). So, chips from the first group cannot be converted to MODE30, but only in MODE21, which contains an additional flash- section that negatively affects the compatibility level.

If you don't have old computer, then other models will do, but still not all. For example, controllers Alcor, have never had a good loadability and in general this is not their topic.

Here are the chips Innostor who are famous for their USB3.0 models, although they are crooked for loading, but they can carry up to 6 ISO-disc images!

Below, utilities for manufacturers will be considered. USB controllers capable of working with CD-section. In the same place, you can find a complete list of flash drives suitable for this case.

MULTIPLE CDROM PARTITIONS ON ONE FLASH DRIVE

Speaking specifically about simultaneously working CD-ROM areas on a flash drive, then I was able to curb only a few controller manufacturers. These are my favorites SMI controllers, some flash drives on Phison and chips used in Chinese fakes Chipsbank.

On the USBDev portal, you can read detailed instruction to create up to 7 simultaneously operating SDROMs. At the same time, disk images can be changed in a couple of clicks, bypassing the flashing procedures, which minimizes subsequent risks to the limit!

In the same article, two videos are inserted that I specially recorded for you, in case the letters are too tough.

with chips from Phison, although everything is done an order of magnitude easier, only under MODE32 Not all flash drives fit. Of those I have tried, slightly more than half have been found to work in this particular mode. Yes and MODE32 limited to only two simultaneously working SDROM ami.

Controllers Chipsbank, least of all I liked in this regard. And the creation process is longer and more dreary. And the probability of finding a flash drive of a suitable volume on it is extremely small. Yes, and the ability to flash two CDROM-section, there is only the latest chips, line CBM2098 and CBM2099.

SMI chips, controllers from Innostor already mentioned above. They, of course, will never match in functionality and flexibility with SMI-shkami, but they have at least something in terms of multi-boot.

At Innostor, although one section under CD Rom, but there can be written up to 6 ISO images and through a special Windows program entitled Innostor AI-Burn, choose the required one in this moment time.

The operation itself to change the flash drive is a little risky, so it is better not to do it with flash drives in non-standard cases ( monoliths, penny-sized flash drives, ...). That is, so that in case of incorrect completion of the controller firmware, it would be possible to disassemble the case and transfer the flash drive to test mode.

In principle, provided that you are doing everything correctly, the utility is suitable for your flash drive and create only a CD-ROM area on the flash drive, then the chance that the flash drive will hang is very small. It was not in vain that I highlighted in bold that it is advisable not to create other areas on the flash drive, except for CD-ROM. Although some write that it is better to create in addition to CDROM-section is also a flash area where you can drop files. But I am extremely skeptical about this.

What problems can there be when you create two or more areas on a flash drive:

It is very likely that when you try to return the flash drive to its original state or overwrite ISO-file, the flash driver will exit with an error and your flash drive will have to be flashed again or even it will “freeze”. In this case, it will have to be converted to test mode And already from there to flash. Those. if you have monolithic flash drive, you are taking quite a risk and I think that the game is not worth the candle.

Not available on all computers Windows flash partition, although the likelihood of this is very, very small.

From under BIOS, with a decent probability, it will not be possible to load through the bootloader (such as GRUB4DOS), elements with flush- areas of the flash drive. Those. in Windows you have everything in a bunch, but here is a bummer, for example, on my computer there is such a battle.

Perhaps such that even with CDROM-domain is not loading at all, which occurs on a very large percentage of older computers. This problem is especially acute for company controllers. Innostor.

The flash drive takes much longer to initialize by the computer.

I may be overdramatizing the situation a little, but I just want to give you some thoughts in case you run into problems.

HOW TO FLASH TO CDROM

For creating CD- area on USB-flash drive, you need to select a utility for a specific controller installed in a specific flash drive. Sometimes, when selecting, it is necessary to consider the memory chip as the main parameter, but this is already offtopic for this article. Then set up the utilities with a specific bundle (controller + memory), activate the settings associated with the CDROM area and then specify the path to the disk image itself (for the features of specific utilities, see below in the comments next to exclamation point[!]). After such an operation, the flash drive in BIOS will be defined (depending on the settings of the production utility and the capabilities of the controller) either as CDROM-device, or as two devices ( CDROM + normal section).

Also, the quality of the result, oddly enough, depends on the utility used. For example, Alcor did not create old versions of utilities CDROM-area more 4GB or at skymedia bootability in LUN2 mode may depend on the version.

I will clarify the situation with, as it were, a limitation in 4GB on size ISO-disk image - so no 4gb limit and never was. It all depends on the capabilities of the available software versions for a particular hardware (controller + memory). So for some very old controllers and also for some not very advanced ones, I'm not familiar with those at all. And that nonsense (about 4GB and others), which often walks on the Internet, is associated only with the mental retardation of those who write it. Often such people have never had more than 1-2 flash drives and at the same time they are trying to teach others. Also a distinguishing feature of these boobies are recommendations for finding software using VID-PID which are also complete nonsense.

Detailed manuals with pictures for the main controllers will be written and posted in separate articles. So you need to be patient, and I scrape together a desire and it's in the bag.

WHAT SPECIFIC UTILITIES CAN CREATE A CD-ROM PARTITION

List of utilities that allow you to create a CDROM area and their features for the main controllers:

Alcor: AlcorMP_UFD, ALCOR recovery tool, FC MpTool, Transcend AlcorMP JF620 Online Recovery, Transcend AlcorMP V15 Online Recovery.
!: To create a Generic Autorun Disk using ‘Transcend AlcorMP JF620 Online Recovery’, just rename the necessary image to create a CD partition to security_f.iso, put it next to OnLineRecovery_620.exe and perform the flash drive recovery procedure by running OnLineRecovery_620.exe. After the execution of OnLineRecovery_620.exe, two partitions are always created: a CD partition with the contents of security_f.iso and a regular partition defined in Windows as a removable disk in FAT32 format.
!: To create a Generic Autorun Disk using ‘Transcend AlcorMP V15 Online Recovery’, just rename the necessary image to create a CD partition to TMUS.iso, put it next to OnLineRecovery_TMUS.exe and perform the flash drive recovery procedure by running OnLineRecovery_TMUS.exe. After executing OnLineRecovery_TMUS.exe, two partitions are always created: a CD partition with the contents of TMUS.iso, and a normal partition defined by Windows as a FAT32 removable disk labeled Trend Micro.
!: On flash drives with Alcor controllers up to and including the AU6982 model, it has not yet been possible to create an ‘Autorun’ partition.

Chipsbank: Chipsbank APTool, Chipsbank CBM2093 UMPTool, Chipsbank UMPTool, Chipsbank V88 UMPTool, FlashDiskManager.

Innostor: Innostor MP Tool, AI-Burn, AI Partition.
!: AI-Burn - only overwrites CD area created with Innostor MP Tool or AI Partition.
!: AI Partition - only creates a CD-area, on which you can then use AI-Burn to burn a disk image.

IT Tech. Inc. : MPTool, DtMPTool, UFDUtility, CDROM Tool.

Phison: Phison ModeConverter, Phison MPALL, Phison USB MPTool.
!: Phison ModeConverter v1.0.1.5 is the easiest and safest way to create, for modern Pison controllers.
!: Mode = 30 (CDROM Only); Mode = 21 (CDROM + Public).
!: There may be some problems with the subsequent definition of a flash drive in the utilities when creating a 'CDROM\Public + fixed disk‘.

skymedia Skymedi PDT, Skymedi SK6213 ISO Update Tool.
!: The parameter ‘Autorun Counter’ means the number of times the CDROM partition will appear in the system. In order for the section to work indefinitely, enter the value 255 (==unlimited) in this field.

SMI: SMI MPTool, DYNA MPTool, uDiskToolBar, MySDKTest, UFDisk Utilities.

SSS: 3S USB MP Utility, 3S USB OnCardSorting.
!: In the utility windows there are no settings responsible for the CD area of ​​the flash drive, so you need to edit the configuration file used (for example - 6691_CM_T32D2 TSOP 32Gb x 2.INI) as follows: approximately after the section add section where to add the line CDROM_ISO=j:\LIVECD\_2K10\MultiBoot_2k10_2.6.1_conty9.iso(where MultiBoot_2k10_2.6.1_conty9.iso is the file you want to burn to the CD area).

Not all controllers have the ability to overwrite the CDROM area without re-creating other sections of the flash drive. For example, I know for sure only about two firms of controllers with which this operation can be carried out, namely:
Innostor: using the AI-Burn utility.

SMI: using the program MySDKTest. Despite the fact that this software fully supports only controllers up to and including the SM3255AB model. It is capable of performing the disk image replacement procedure with any, even the most modern SMI chip.

Return flash drive the initial state, as a rule, you can use the same utilities, as well as some other utilities that you can find on my site.

CD-ROM on a flash drive is a very handy thing. It is 100% compatible with ISO images and guaranteed to work from the computer's BIOS. That will allow you to boot from a USB flash drive as from a regular CD-ROM. That is, the computer will never know that it is being "cheated".

The era of optical drives is over. In modern computers CD-ROM drive(DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-RW, CD-RW) is becoming a rarity. Therefore, users have to "get out" in every possible way when it is necessary to install the operating system. In order not to look for an external USB optical drive, it has long been possible to boot from a USB flash drive. And all modern computers have such support in the BIOS. But no, no, yes, a situation arises like in Viktor Tsoi's song "everything is in place, but something is wrong." Many times I came across a situation where the computer booted from only one flash drive out of five. And the only way out of this situation is to create (emulate) a CD-ROM on a USB flash drive. That is, when the computer sees the USB flash drive as a real optical drive.
There are many solutions on the net about this. All of them are some kind of puzzle. In which you first need to find out the type of controller on the flash drive, the organization and model (brand) of memory. Then, under this hardware, you need to find a special program for reprogramming the controller and uploading an ISO image. At the same time, not all controllers used in flash drives have the ability to emulate CD-ROM. That is, it is not a fact that your flash drive can do it at all. And the saddest thing is that even following all the instructions exactly, there is a great chance to ruin the flash drive.
The ideal option in such a situation is to buy a flash drive for which the manufacturer himself has provided the ability to create a CD-ROM. Once I came across a Transcend JetFlash 620 8Gb flash drive

A distinctive feature of which is the presence of a built-in virtual CD-ROM. This means that the controller supports CD-ROM creation and we are half way to success.

How to create a CD-ROM on a Transcend JetFlash 620 8Gb flash drive

To create a CD-ROM on a Transcend JetFlash 620 8Gb flash drive, you need to download the JetFlash Online Recovery diagnostic and recovery utility for this USB drive model from the official website. At the time of this writing, for the Transcend JetFlash 620 8Gb flash drive current version programs for Windows v9.0.0.8 (JetFlash 620). The size of the program is 5.7 MB.
After downloading the archive, you will need to unpack the EXE file. I have this OnLineRecovery_JF620_v9.0.0.8.exe. This is a self-extracting archive containing the OnLineRecovery_620.exe utility and the file CD-ROM image security_f.iso.
So, the main secret of this article. In order to create virtual CD-ROM on the Transcend JetFlash 620 flash drive, you need to rename the one you need ISO file image, for example, the installation distribution of the operating system, into security_f.iso and put it next to the OnLineRecovery_620.exe recovery utility. After that, run the utility and it will create two partitions on the flash drive, one of which will write your ISO image, which will be recognized by computers as a USB-CD-ROM, and the remaining space will be a regular flash drive. It's that simple.
I hope you should not warn that as a result of the JetFlash Online Recovery recovery utility, all data from the flash drive will disappear.

Procedure for creating a CD-ROM on a flash drive

1. Download the recovery utility from the official site. We unpack.
2. We rename the necessary image to security_f.iso and put it next to the utility.
3. We launch the recovery utility and enjoy the result.

Consider creating a so-called “CD-ROM partition” on a flash drive based on the SMI SM3252BB controller. Now I will explain why I wrote the last sentence, since I wrote it. CD-ROM section, I highlighted it with quotation marks, because it's not a partition, but rather a separate device. And the second component that requires explanation is SM3252BB, the controller is just marked like that, which is recognized by all utilities and flashed as SM3252C. I think that it is most convenient to use the option how the flash drive is identified among others. And then in letters and models, which are really scratched on SMI chips, you can easily get confused even by an experienced look.

The advantages of the fact that a flash drive is defined as a CD-ROM drive are not few. For example, this is the impossibility of registering virus programs on it when working with an infected computer. It also allows you to boot on older computers where there is no possibility to boot from USB. I recommend you read the article for more details. before reading this article, because. there are general theses that must be understood!

; Flash drive model
Sony Micro Vault USM-4GL

; Report on the inner world of a flash drive, with using Flash Drive Information Extractor

Screenshot:

Report: Volume: I: Controller: Silicon Motion SM3252 C Possible Memory Chip(s): Intel 29F32G08AAMDA Intel 29F32G08AAMDD Memory Type: MLC Flash ID: 89680446FFFF Flash CE: 1 Flash Channels: Single Chip F/W: ISP 100603-MI-r VID: 090C PID: 1000 Manufacturer: Sony Product: USB DISK Query Vendor ID: Sony Query Product ID: USB DISK Query Product Revision: 0100 Physical Disk Capacity: 2621440000 Bytes Windows Disk Capacity: 2616307712 Bytes File System: FAT32 Relative Offset: 4 KB USB Version: 2.00 Max. Power: 100 mA ContMeas ID: 1A2D-86-00 Microsoft Windows XP SP3 ———————————— Program Version: 7.3.0.460

So, let's decide on possible ways to solve the problem of creating a CD-ROM area on the SM3252C controller. Well, what can I tell you? This controller model is the most successful option in order to talk about the maximum possible ways to create this area on SMI chips.

Here are the ways that are available to us in this case:
– using the production utility SMI MPTool;
– with a miniature user utility MySDKTest(recommended);
- with the help of a smarter and more buggy user utility uDiskToolBar;
- using a morally obsolete utility UFDisk Utilities, with dibility interface.

Creating a CD-ROM area using a production program SMI MPTool

First, consider the production utilities from the line SMI MPTool. It is necessary to find a version of the utility that would support work not only with the SM3252C controller itself, but also with the memory chip installed with it. Read more about finding the right version here - . In short, you need to choose the most new version from utilities SMI MPTool, in square brackets of which there is the controller we need (SM3252C).
After you have downloaded desired version utilities, unpack it somewhere, but so that in address bar there was no special symbols and other heresy. Next, run the production utility (most often the executable file is named sm32Xtest.exe), connect the flash drive and if the flash drive is not detected by the utility, then press the 'Scan USB (F5)' button.

At the bottom of the screenshot we can see the following words: SM3252C (SM3252CISP_MI_34NM.BIN). This means that for your memory chip (or one very similar to it), the program automatically picked up the firmware files (ISP and PTest). You, of course, may have another binary file specified, but in this situation, you need at least something to pick up there. I will not go deeper into compatibility, because. this is not directly related to the issue at hand.

Next, we need to move on to setting the settings necessary to create a CD-ROM area, so let's go to the utility settings. To do this, click the Setting button, in the window that appears, you must enter a password to access the settings with the rights to edit them.

We have opened the utility settings that need to be configured based on the recommendations below.

We enter the password 320, click OK, in the window that appears, select the default.ini file from the distribution kit of the production utility and click Open.
Erase All Block + 55 AA (depending on the version, it may have a different name Erase Bad Block 55 AA, ...)
[X] Write CID
DBF Method: TSOP Standard Type
[X] Download ISP
Disk Type: USB ZIP
USB power: 100ma
Check USB: No Check
[X] Make Auto Run (specify the path to the ISO image of the disk you want to put on the CDROM partition)
[?] CDROM Only (in case of creation task without flash area, check this box. Recommended!)
[X] Format (when using the ‘ CDROM Only‘, this option is deactivated because it does not matter)
[X] FAT32 (the most reasonable, or you can not choose a file system at all, but format later, using OS tools)

If you do not activate the option ‘ CDROM Only', then in the end you will get a flash drive with two areas: Public(regular flash partition) and CD-ROM. To create an exclusively CD area (which is what I recommend), i.e. without a public section, you need to put a bird on the parameter ‘ CDROM Only‘.

Fill in the following fields as you wish using the English alphabet: Vendor Str, Product Str, Vendor, Product. In the figure above, I entered Sony as a vendor, because. flash drive over which I scoff at their production. You can leave what is there by default, because. this does not affect the operation of the flash drive itself. Alternatively, based on the initial report of the Flash Drive Information Extractor or ChipGenius about your flash drive, you can fill in these positions in the settings.
Once you have done everything you need to, save the entered settings by clicking on the button OK at the bottom of the dialog box.

Press the button ‘ Start (Space Key)‘, confirm in the warning that appears ( Warning: The pretest will erase bad block. Do you want Continuous??) the decisiveness of our actions and the firmware of the flash drive will begin. Do not pull out the flash drive until all operations are completed, use only the rear USB ports to reduce the possibility of unforeseen embarrassments.

The operation will start at the very beginning. Pretest, and so it should not last too long, i.e. if it lasts more than two minutes it is no longer normal. Therefore, you can safely close the program and pull the flash drive forcibly out of USB port if the program has been fiddling with the Pretest procedure for more than 4 minutes.
The result of such force majeure actions may be the following:
- nothing will happen, you will only need to flash the USB flash drive with a suitable version of the utility;
- the flash drive will no longer be detected operating system, there are two possible solutions:
- - just clear information about previously connected devices using the utility ' USB Storage Registry Cleaner 1.002', you can download it here - .
- - the flash drive is frozen and you need to transfer it to “test mode”, for this, carefully read the article - .
I pulled out my flash drives many times and only in less than 5-10% of cases I had to disassemble the case and put the flash drive into test mode.

I will not go deeper into possible problems due to curvature and not a fully suitable version of the utility.

A proud inscription flaunts on a green background - OK, indicating that the parameters specified in the settings are applied without errors. It remains to close the program, disconnect the USB flash drive from the USB port and reconnect it.

Just in case, I will explain to you one point, namely the return of the flash drive to its original state using the same program SMI MPTool. To do this, you need to uncheck the 'Make Auto Run' option in the settings and re-flash the USB flash drive. Although if there is more than one area on your flash drive, then the first time you try to flash the flash drive, an error will appear. This is quite normal, as with any other controller, when there are several areas on the flash drive.

Perhaps after you have caught the error and reconnected the USB flash drive to the USB port, it will be enough for you to format the USB flash drive standard means Windows formatting.

Well, or in extreme cases, re-flashing the flash drive will put an end to it!

Creating a CDROM Partition with a Mini Utility MySDKTest

This tiny utility is very nice to me, because. with its tiny size, it has a very decent amount of functions that simple users need. When working with my flash drives, I did not notice any problems, unlike the utility uDiskToolBar, which I will tell you about a little lower.

Briefly describe the principle of creation CD areas through MySDKTest, two independent steps can be distinguished.

The first of them, we create on a flash drive CDROM-section (at least), and the second directly fill in the disk image we need (.ISO format).

Let's start with the first one:
We connect the USB flash drive to the PC, run the utility (MySDKTest_V1.0.exe) and inadvertently go to the third tab of the dialog box - ‘ Format Function‘. Of course, the flash drive should be recognized by the utility, i.e. in the menu ‘ Access Disk‘ (located in the upper left corner), the letter of your flash drive must be selected. In this menu, only a flash drive based on controllers is visible SMI, so do not be afraid that you have so few disk volumes.

On the 'Format Function' tab, several modes are available to us, each of which corresponds to a letter characterizing the mode. For the purpose of this article, we are interested in three of them, because only they are somehow connected with connected with CD-ROM area.
– Mode-B: CD-ROM + Public only (2-Luns)- two areas on a flash drive, CD-ROM + removable flash partition;
– Mode-D: CD-ROM + Public/Security (2-Luns)– three areas, the CDROM component is always active, and only one of the other two;
– Mode-E: CD-ROM Only (1-Lun)- one partition on a flash drive and it is also a CDROM, the most reasonable option for booting from under the BIOS;

Now we need to decide on the mode in which the flash drive will work. So you have chosen the mode, then we need to set the volumes for them in the appropriate columns to your taste, in megabytes. Set size CDROM-the area should be with a small margin, so that in the future the images of the disks that you are going to fill in there are guaranteed to fit.

We press the button Format and distort the flash drive in the USB port. As a result, we have a flash drive marked into the specified areas. Whichever mode we choose from these three, we have somehow created CD-ROM section, but at this stage there is no access to it, because. We didn't upload any data to it.

At the end of the work, we see the following picture:

I would like to note the pleasant opportunity of this utility to reload images on CDROM regions, without making changes to the Public area. Of course, your appetites will be limited by the size of this area, which was set at the first stage of working with the program.

To return everything to its original state, i.e. to the only Public areas on a flash drive, do the following:
- if after the last processing of the flash drive, you did not distort it in the port, then be sure to do it;
- on the already familiar 'Format Function' tab, return everything to its original state. Those. in position ‘ Part Type', choose ' Initialize: Public Only (1-Lun)‘. Dimensions Public section and others can be left with any values, because they do not affect formatting in this mode.
- at the end of all procedures, close the program and reconnect the USB flash drive to the USB port.

Creating a CD-ROM Partition with a Little Crooked Utility uDiskToolBar

As is clear from what I have already written on this page about uDiskToolBar, You can guess that working with this utility does not give me any pleasure.

For my flash drive on the SM3252C controller, I used the K0413 version of uDiskToolBar. Download, run, find the item ‘AutoRun Manager’ and click on it, in this case it is the third in a row.

A dialog box has opened in front of us, on top of which there is a graphical display of the distribution of the volume of the flash drive. If the volume is displayed incorrectly there, then this is a sign that this version of the utility is not suitable for your flash drive.

In the 'ISO File' column, specify the path to the disk image that you are going to burn to the CD-ROM part of the flash drive. If you want to create only a CDROM area on the flash drive (without a flash partition), then set the checkbox to the 'CDROM Only' parameter. After you have finally decided on the settings, finally proceed to the creation process, to do this, click the Burn button.

It remains to reconnect the USB flash drive to the USB port and check what we got.

Creating a CDROM Region with the Dumb Utility UFDisk Utilities

As mentioned on the page SMI utilities, from those versions of this program that are available to us, there is no one that supported newer models SM3252C. It’s as if we don’t need more for happiness, because. the main thing is that the chip described in the article is supported. In addition to this model, work with controllers is supposedly supported by the program: SM321AC, SM321BB, SM321BC, SM324BB, SM324BC, SM3252A, SM3252B, SM325AB, SM325AC.
We connect the flash drive to the computer, run the application UFDiskUtilities_rev02_080909.exe and select the sixth item in the window - auto run.

As you can see from the picture, here the program displayed the size of my flash drive - 3824.00MB. From my own experience with other utilities for SMI chips, I can tell you that just the correct determination of the volume of a flash drive is a 95% guarantee that it supports working with your flash drive.
Next we need to specify the size CDROM regions, use the slider and select ISO image drive in line ‘ ISO File Path‘. As in the situation with the utility MySDKTest, the size CD-ROM areas be sure to specify a slightly larger size ISO image, which you are going to fill in there.

After we have indicated everything we need, we just have to click the button Make and wait for the completion of all operations, after which you need to close the utility as expected and pull the flash drive into USB port.

As a result, you will receive a flash drive that will be defined as a separate CD-ROM drive, from which it will be possible to boot as from a regular blank. Well, or in case you did not create CD-ROM-only, then you will have two sections, one and which will be defined as CDROM, and the second as a flash drive. Although on my ancient hardware, not absolutely everything loaded from this old controller model, but despite this, it is a good flash drive. And if there are two or more partitions on the flash drive, then such a flash drive becomes even less useless, because. partly lost is what we started this mess. What to choose for you, decide for yourself!

Since there is a section on the forum about storage media (including optical ones, such as CDs and DVDs), it was decided to write an article about such a not very, unfortunately, popular method of burning discs as packet recording. Perhaps, after reading, someone will be interested in this method.

Batch method for burning CD/DVD-RW discs or how to use optical RW discs like a flash drive or HDD

Nowadays, various flash drives, portable HDDs have almost completely replaced optical CDs and DVDs, which at one time were quite popular due to their relatively low cost and very capacious volume (at that time anyway). And there are many reasons for this, of course. These are their size, and constant damage to discs due to scratches and cracks, and low write speed, and noise during the operation of the drive.

Yes, even the process of writing data to such disks could only take place in a session: we decide in advance what data to write, set it to the program, and the recording takes place. Subsequently, if we need to add something to the disc, we open a new session, and this is the loss of a few extra megabytes (tens of megabytes on DVD), since they are reserved for service information. Well, in principle, it is impossible to delete any individual files from the disk, you have to completely erase it, then re-write the data to a disc, leaving only what you need ...

Of course, the complexity and inconvenience of the procedure for writing data to such discs repels most users. After all, it is much easier to plug a USB flash drive into a USB port, copy what you need; if there is something extra, you can delete it. But not many people know that in fact, this is also possible on optical discs. After all, the writing laser, in theory, does not care what to write. Solution - Batch write method (Packet Writing), invented by the way a long time ago.

The essence of the method

Unlike the session recording method, when the entire session with data and service information is pre-formed and immediately written entirely to disk, the batch recording method allows you to record data not immediately, but in small portions (packets). Thus, the disk can be treated like a regular flash drive: write, edit, delete data directly on it.

The RW disc is pre-formatted (this operation takes 10-15 minutes), the UDF file system is written to it, after which the disc can be fully used on any burning drive in Linux operating systems (if the package is installed udftools), as well as Mac OS X and Windows Vista/7/8. In earlier versions of Windows (Windows 98/ME/2000/XP), you will need to install additional software such as Nero InCD or Roxio Drag To Disc, for example. In the absence of such software in the same Windows XP, for example, data from such a disk can only be read.

In this article, I will review the process of preparing a DVD-RW blank for use in packet writing mode in Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. For those who have Windows 7 or Windows 8 installed on their computer, the provisioning process will be similar in principle to Windows Vista.

Batch writing CD/DVD-RW under Windows Vista/7/8

As I already said, before using our RW blank (in my case it is a DVD-RW disc), you need to format it first. In Windows Vista/7/8, this procedure is extremely simple, you do not need to install any additional programs.

1. Insert our RW disk into the drive tray.

2. If there is any data on it, we erase them. To do this, double-click on the icon A computer on the desktop (or execute the menu command Start ==> Computer). In the window that appears, find the icon of our drive, click on it right click mouse and select from the menu that appears. Erase this drive.

The Erase Disk Wizard window will appear. We press Further, the erasing process will begin. After its completion, press Ready.

3. Now that we have blank disc, you can start formatting right away. Just double-click on the drive icon, a small window will appear in which you will be prompted to enter a label for the future disk. Enter the desired label, you can leave the existing one; later it can be changed.

Click on the round arrow button Show formatting options.

The window will expand and formatting options will appear. There will be two switches here that set the method for writing data to disk. The radio button will be set by default. Live file system- this is exactly what we need, so we leave it on. Now we need to decide on the version of the UDF file system.

It all depends on which operating system this disk will be used, UDF version 2.01 is offered by default in Windows Vista. If the writable disc will be used on computers with an operating Windows system Vista or later, you can leave version 2.01. If you plan to use the disk in earlier versions of Windows, it is recommended to change the version to 1.50. To do this, immediately below the switch Live file system click on the link Change version, in the window that appears in the drop-down list, select the version of UDF 1.50 and click OK.

4. We have decided on the parameters, you can start formatting. We click on the button Further. A message will appear warning us that formatting may take time and that you should not turn off the computer while the format is in progress. We agree, let's Yes. The formatting process will begin, a window will appear on the screen showing its progress.

The duration of this operation largely depends on the allowed recording speed of the disc itself, as well as on the maximum recording speed supported by the drive. In my case, a 4-speed DVD-RW disc was used, the formatting procedure took about 15 minutes.

5. After the formatting procedure is completed, the window showing its progress will disappear. It will be possible to start working with the disk.

It will be possible to record, delete, edit files on a disk in any program, in any file manager. The disk is removed in the usual way: close all programs using the disk, then remove it. When you insert a disc into the burner on a computer running Windows Vista/7/8, you can use it immediately.

Batch writing CD/DVD-RW in earlier versions of Windows

Prior to the release of Windows Vista, CD and DVD burning software vendors built special utilities for recording optical discs in batch mode. Ahead AG Software (now Nero AG Software) released a utility Ahead/Nero InCD, Roxio - Drag To Disc(previously known as DirectCD), NTI- NTI FileCD.

In truth, such utilities were quite buggy. And since packet writing technology was so successful in Windows Vista, the manufacturers of CD and DVD burning software decided to drop their own packet writing utilities in subsequent versions of their packages.

These utilities are usually paid. Find the latest versions at manufacturers' websites is extremely difficult. I will be using Nero InCD v4.3.

The installation process of Nero InCD is quite simple: run the installation file, enter the serial number, install the program and restart the computer. After the reboot, you can start working with our RW disk.

1. Insert an RW disc into the drive.

2. We click 2 times on the icon My computer on the desktop, in the window that appears, right-click on the icon of our drive. In the menu that appears, select the item InCD Format.

3. A window for setting formatting options will appear on the screen.

There are few parameters: it is proposed to specify the type of formatting and the label of the disk. What is good, unlike Windows Vista, there is a quick format, which will take less than a minute (however, in this case, the disk surface will not be checked for damage).

UDF version selection can be activated by going to Options and check the box there Allow ext. format options. After that, a button will appear in the formatting window. Extended, by clicking on which you can select the desired version of the UDF.

Select a quick format, set the desired label and click Start. Formatting will take a few seconds, after which the disc can be used.

For some reason, a disc burnt in Windows Vista in batch write mode could not be burned in Windows XP via Nero InCD. However, a disc formatted with Nero InCD opened without problems in Windows Vista and data could be written to it.

How to undo batch write on disk?

By simply erasing the disc. In Windows Vista, this can be done by means of the OS, or by means of third-party software such as Nero Burning ROM. In Windows XP, using the same Nero InCD utility, by clicking in the window My computer on the drive icon and selecting InCD Erase.

Modified April 17, 2013 by Shadow TH

This article will discuss how, by reprogramming (“flashing”) the control controller of a flash memory module (“flash drive”), make any computer to which such a flash drive is connected perceive it not as standard USB disk, but as an external CD / DVD drive with a CD "inserted" into it that the user needs.

Author's notice

To be honest, at first I did not want to include this section in my article at all. However, after some thought, I decided to do it anyway. Why? Well, firstly, the fashion has gone like this now ;-) Secondly, I thought that it would really be nice to familiarize readers in advance with the principles that I followed 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 is taken “from the ceiling” and has never been verified by anyone. Quite the contrary - personally, according to the method I have outlined here, I “reflashed” at least two dozen flash drives, and all operations, except for one single time, were completed successfully. Speaking about the disclaimer of responsibility, I only draw your attention to the fact that due to such objective and in no way controllable factors as: a huge variety of models and modifications of flash drives, possible mistakes in the software used, various hardware and software configurations of computers and no less different levels of user training, What works fine on my computer may not work on yours.. Additionally, I want to note that the method I describe is not standard and predetermined for their products from manufacturers of flash memory modules, therefore all operations described in this article, you perform at your own peril and risk. Remember this! If, as a result of the manipulations described below, you incur any material and / or moral damage, all claims should be addressed only to yourself. O possible risk of further action, I warned you. 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 one or another software that we need to work. So, I warn you in advance that I have nothing to do with the owners of these pages, and, moreover, with the developers of the software hosted 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 will not be located at the specified links, or it will become virus-free, or in any way damage your computer - again, all claims should be addressed either to the authors of the resources or to the software developers (if, of course, you manage to find them), or to yourself.

And the last. Since I strongly doubt that the topic of my article will be of interest to novice computer users, I initially rely on a prepared reader. Therefore, I will try to state 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 needed at all), you, dear readers, should already know. If you (suddenly!) Don’t know this, then it’s obviously premature for you to read my article - except perhaps as information for “general development” in order to know that “this also happens.”

Why is this necessary, or why are we not looking for easy ways?

To answer this question, you have to start from afar.

As you know, in the period lasting approximately from the mid-90s to the mid-2000s, optical CDs were the main carriers of more or less significant amounts of information - first CDs with a capacity of up to several hundred megabytes appeared, then they were slowly replaced various modifications of more "advanced" DVDs up to several gigabytes. At present, despite the greatly shaken positions, CDs have not yet completely lost their significance (at least in such areas as, for example, the sale of "boxed" software).

Around the mid-2000s, CDs, which previously dominated 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 years of delay before their wide distribution is due exclusively to the small volume and high cost of producing the first serial samples. However, from the very beginning, the technology of flash-memory had such obvious advantages over traditional methods of storing information that it was only a matter of time to bring certain specific parameters “to mind”.

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 drives have one, but a very serious drawback - security. Or rather, the lack of it. Interesting, but quite understandable, is the fact that the viral population transmitted through information carriers, which existed at a small but stable level until the mid-90s (in 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 a 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, which cannot be written to in principle. Until CDs had a viable alternative, both users and manufacturers had to put up 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 too! Virus writers would have to build in each of their “creations” a full-fledged program for burning optical discs, which would immediately nullify such important characteristics for viruses as stealth, speed and small volume. It can be seen that, mindful of the problems so characteristic of optical discs, the developers of flash memory modules decided to make life easier for end users. And viruses. Since a flash drive, along with a floppy disk and hard drive, does not require any third-party software to write information and any operations can be performed through the standard Windows "Explorer", all the barriers that prevent them from penetrating to the USB flash drive and back have disappeared before viruses. And given how popular this type of media is now, one can imagine the level of interest in them from the authors of the viruses and the approximate scale of the epidemic. to plug USB flash drive to an infected computer, so that it immediately settles someone(I had to deal with viruses that automatically scanned USB ports for the presence of storage devices and, if they were found, immediately wrote their copy to them or performed some kind of destructive action). A few years ago, you could still 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, at present, such flash drives are almost never found. The reason why manufacturers refuse such an inexpensive but extremely useful improvement is not known to me. Judging by some reviews posted on the Internet, such microswitches have a small mechanical resource and quickly fail, 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, perhaps, is really 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, don’t understand what! No self-respecting surgeon would perform an operation with a dirty non-sterile instrument. In this sense, the work of a doctor and a professional computer scientist has much in common - both here and there, sterility is extremely important. You can, of course, take a “step back” and burn all the necessary set of programs on the good old optical discs of the “...-R” modification, but ...

Firstly, full set professional programs to restore the computer, as a rule, it has a volume that significantly exceeds the volume of one disk, so you will have to carry with you not one, but a whole set of disks, which, you see, is no longer good ...

Secondly, optical discs, which serve as "workhorses", constantly carried whenever, wherever and in anything, deteriorate rather quickly, becoming dusty and covered with scratches.

Thirdly, even the most "advanced" modifications of DVDs provide a very mediocre, by modern standards, reading speed. It happens that booting the system from such a recovery disk takes up to 10-15 minutes. I do not argue that some people will agree to wait for 10, and 15 minutes, and even a whole hour - it would be just something to wait, but, you see, if there is an opportunity to increase the productivity of your labor at times, it’s a sin not to use this opportunity.

Fourthly, such a once standard and mandatory device as a DVD drive is increasingly becoming persona non grata in a modern computer, in laptop computers it hasn’t been “since birth”, and I won’t even say anything about Blu-Ray drives ... At the same time, not only almost all types of computers are equipped with USB ports, but the number of these useful ports is growing steadily. 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, you don’t feel like giving up flash drives that have already become familiar in favor of optical discs! “But you don’t have to! - will say experienced user. - Isn't the Internet littered with programs that allow you to write an "image" to a USB flash drive desired disk? And he will be right ... Partly. Most of these programs - DirectGRUB, WinSetupFromUSB, WinToFlash, UnetBootIn, ROSAImageWriter - and dozens of similar programs do their job really well, but, firstly, they do not give the user “freedom of maneuver”, clearly “tying” him to the “image” of one or different type; and secondly, despite the emerging 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, deleted some files from it, or, conversely, add some information.

However, there is a way that allows you to write the contents to a USB flash drive absolutely any the disk you need with the ability to boot from this USB flash drive, while its contents will be securely protected from "intrusion" - creating a CD-ROM (DVD-ISO) partition on a USB flash drive and writing an "image" of the desired disk into it.

Why is "flashing" possible?

This becomes possible because the manufacturers of controllers for flash drives themselves initially lay in their products the ability to work in various modes, including in the emulation (imitation) mode of an external CD / DVD drive. Thus, manufacturers leave themselves a “loophole” for creating various tricky “branded” flash drives. After some time, information about this one way or another becomes available to the general public, and after some more time, versions of “proprietary” utilities appear on the Internet, allowing you to switch the controller mode in practice.

What is needed for "flashing"?

To successfully complete this interesting procedure, we 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;
• program-"flasher";
• in fact, the “firmware” itself (in 99% of cases it comes with the program);
• ISO image of the desired disk;
• any instruction (for example, this article);
• approximately one hour of free time;
• straight arms and crooked brains (but by no means vice versa! ;-))

As I said, you must know what an ISO image is and have it available (download from the Internet, "take off" from an existing optical disc, "assemble" 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 for you personally here, since the topic is so vast and multifaceted that it deserves to write a separate article. In extreme cases, 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 desired “image”.

I want to draw your attention to the fact that the most difficult stage is, oddly enough, preparatory. The most difficult thing is to choose a mutually suitable pair of "flash drive - program". If you managed to pick up such a pair, then with a probability of 99% all further will end successfully.

Why is it so hard to do? Yes, simply because nowhere to get information. Since “flashing” the controller is not included in the concept of “normal operation” with a flash drive, manufacturers do not consider it necessary to indicate such uninteresting details (why do you need it, miserable?!? ;-)). Moreover, it is enough to mentally put yourself in the place of a large manufacturer of flash drives to understand that you should not even hope for any, so to speak, “internal constancy” of products - he (the manufacturer) produces them in millions of pieces, while he must take care of continuous supply to the market. From this it follows that he has dozens of contracts with various companies producing controllers, memory chips and other electronic "stuffing". Today, one specific model of a 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 former supplier of controllers will have problems on production, the baton will be intercepted by another company, offering its new controller Yo-030. Of course, sooner or later, service utilities appear on the Web 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 utility suitable for it, only God and Chinese computer pirates know ;-)

From this follow three possible strategies for our search:

• borrow each flash drive bought by a friend, colleague, or issued at work by the supply department for an hour, and check it with a special program (which one I will tell below). The flash drive will not suffer from this and all the 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 bought and go there to buy ourselves the same one.
• 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, describing a particular flash drive, also indicate the controller model. Here, however, you should be careful and look at the date of publication - if the description of the flash drive you found is older than six months, then it is likely that even having bought such a flash drive, you will be very upset, because it will already 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 in accordance with paragraph 1. Obvious shortcomings this method are a big investment of time and money.

The most preferred for beginner seamstresses ... oh, no - programmers, are flash drives on SMI controllers. Phison controllers are a little more difficult to flash, but, in general, not bad either, but it’s better not to mess with Alcor and SSS controllers unless absolutely necessary. With regard to brands of flash drives, the products of A-Data and Apacer (most), Kingston and Transcend (smaller) are of the greatest interest to us.

If you fundamentally don’t want to spend time and money looking for the right flash drive model, but want to “reflash” the existing one at all costs, try first to look for a suitable “flash driver” program here: and here:. The site listed first - usbdev.ru - contains a more complete and detailed file archive, and the likelihood of finding the latest version desired program much higher here. At the same time, its "completeness" and saturation of information have a downside - as a rule, it is very difficult for a beginner to decide which software from the site he really needs. Website, listed second- flashboot.ru - has a simpler structure and a rather nice look, but it's not a fact that you are here, firstly, you can find the program you need, and secondly, that this program will be the freshest. Also, when choosing the right software, you should not forget that both of these sites are dedicated to USB drives. generally, 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 performance of flash drives, monitor, diagnose media, low-level formatting, provide the ability to booting from a flash drive and more.

Demonstration Equipment

As a "guinea pig" I chose an eight-gigabyte USB flash drive "Transcend JetFlash 520S". Why did I choose this flash drive? It's simple:

• since I decided to combine the useful with the useful - to write this article and create a new repair DVD-ROM flash drive for my needs, I first of all paid attention to the case type. In this model of a 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 - it is even protected from moisture penetration (although I did not personally check it ;-)).
• the ISO image I have, which I was going to “fill” on a USB flash drive, occupies a volume of about 3.3 gigabytes, so, of course, one could get by with a four gigabyte one, but flash drives with a volume of less than 8 gigabytes do not exist in this design .
• and, finally, the most important thing - I managed to find information that this flash drive model is 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 which are: short instruction, an insert with advertising information and a transparent blister, which, in turn, contains the flash drive itself and the Transcend branded strap (nice, but extremely short, clearly designed to increase the convenience of manipulating the flash drive, but not for wearing):

The flash drive itself cannot be said to be full-sized, but not miniature either - overall dimensions (length * width * thickness in millimeters): 37 * 12 * 4.5. In general, "slim" ;-)

Determining the controller model

First of all, let's create "at the root" of any of the local drives of your computer working folder, in 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 does not hurt to immediately add this folder to the exceptions of your antivirus, since, for example, my vigilant "watchman" "Dr.Web" er "moved about a third of the software modules in "Quarantine", considering them "potentially dangerous" and "possibly infected."

After we have decided on the working folder, we launch the browser available in the system (in my case, “Mozilla Firefox”) and type the following in the address bar: . On the page that opens, click on the link "Download the program" located at the bottom (2). The archive with the program offered for downloading takes about 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 in 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" appear in our working folder, containing short description program versions. Since this file is not needed for the program to work and only "an eyesore", we delete it with a clear conscience.

Next, go to the "usbflashinfo" subdirectory and run the only exe file "GetFlashInfo.exe" from there. The program window opens with a warning text and a single button "Get information about the flash drive" (see figure):

We connect the USB flash drive at our disposal to a free USB port.

Before taking further actions please read the warning carefully! 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 flash drive, that is, before starting and during the diagnostic process itself, you should not read or write anything from a USB flash drive or to a USB flash drive. Otherwise (very otherwise! :-)) when you click on the "Get information about the flash drive" button, the program will roughly "cut off" access to the flash drive to everyone else who wants it, and what will happen to the data on the flash drive after that (if, of course, they are there exist), no one knows. As you yourself understand, this is especially important if the flash drive under test is not yours, and, in addition, is filled with important information 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’s better to either wait for this process to complete, or if the information on the flash drive is very a lot and the check is delayed, interrupt it through the antivirus menu.

So, we make sure that no one and 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 received 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 will refuse to work the next time you start it and ask you to download an updated version - you don’t need to worry or be scared, the developers of the program don’t require money from you (at least for now ;-)), so it’s not worth neglecting the update about it.

Search for a service utility

So, we managed to determine the specific model of the controller on which our flash drive is assembled. Now is the time to start looking for a suitable “flash driver” program. I hope you have not forgotten the address of a 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 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 that differ 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 search for the version of the program we need, we again launch the browser available in the system and type in the address bar:

Slowly “scrolling” the page that opens, we 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. I remind you that in this case we are interested in a string containing . After the required line is found, download this version of the utility 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” appears in our working folder with program files and a text file “readme.txt” with a link to the source site. Since the “readme.txt” file is of no practical value, we simply delete it so as not to litter 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 and Cyrillic characters), I would advise you to shorten the folder name somewhat for convenience. , until, for example, this: "smi_mptool_3257enba". I repeat - the “flash driver” program will start up perfectly and will work even without renaming the folder in which it is stored, so the purpose of renaming is just to make it easier for the user to navigate in 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 being in a form unsuitable for our purpose, is 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 "flasher" program to in what way you need to "flash" the flash drive controller. Since the configuration file, despite the unusual (in the opinion of a non-specialist) extension “.ini”, as already mentioned, is a plain text file, it can be edited even using a standard Windows text editor"Notebook". True, this task is thankless and complicated for beginners, so we will make changes to the configuration file directly through the interface of the “flash driver” program, in which, exclusively for this purpose, a special button is provided (well done, Chinese!). In general, the need to edit it is explained by the fact that the configuration file that comes with the service utility is intended, first of all, to restore the performance of ordinary flash drives, so there is no way to "turn" a standard flash drive into a CD / DVD drive "by default » does not provide.

To make the changes we need to the configuration file, go to the folder with the service utility - "smi_mptool_3257enba" - and run the only executable file from there - "sm32Xtest_V27-8.exe":

The main window of the service utility opens in front of us, in which we sequentially need to:

• press 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 the entry by pressing the OK button (3):

If you leave the password field blank or enter any combination of letters and numbers there, the program will still give you the opportunity to view the current settings, but it 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 prompted to select a configuration file (2) from those already in the program folder (1) or specify the path to the configuration file (in the event that you saved it somewhere "outside"), confirming the choice by pressing the "OK" button (3):

Nothing prevents you from creating several different configuration files over time in order to choose the most suitable one 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 you should not rename or delete this file. 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 configuration file used "by default" 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 that, the program will “think” for a few seconds, and when it “comes to its senses”, the file you have selected will be installed as a working one. Determine which config file is used in this moment, you can look at the title of the window of the running program, in the center of which, bounded on both sides by non-breaking underscores, 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 for the program itself - the file name ( and all the way to it!) should be as short as possible, should not contain spaces or symbols of the Russian alphabet.

Since the topic of creating multiple configuration files, as well as finding out the differences between them, is beyond the scope of this article, I will not dwell on this in detail, but simply describe what changes should be made to the existing “default.ini” configuration file in order to after "flashing" the controller, the flash drive began to be defined as a CD / DVD drive. After you, having completed all the previous steps, open the “default.ini” file for editing, a window with many settings will appear before your eyes (see figure):

All the settings contained on the first tab of the window, called "Main Flow Setting" ("my main settings") - and so far we are only interested in this one tab - can be conditionally divided into five groups:

• extended USB device identifiers (1);
• abbreviated USB device identifiers (2);
• type of USB device (3);
• USB device indication (4);
• the actual “flashing” settings (5).

From the first group of settings, we need only two lines - “Vendor Str” (“Manufacturer Name”) and “Product Str” (“Product Name”). In principle, the information contained in them 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 in these fields, Latin letters, numbers, and even a space character are allowed. Since I am creating a bootable USB flash drive in the form of a CD / DVD drive to repair broken computers, the ISO image that I plan to "fill" on the USB flash drive is called "Repair" ("recovery"). Accordingly, it will be more convenient for me if my repair flash drive is designated as "REPAIR USB DISK". So, in the "Vendor Str" field, I need to enter the word "REPAIR" (without quotes), and leave the "Product Str" field as it is. Of course, you can change the contents of these fields to your liking, for example, 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 name of the manufacturer and the name of the product in exactly the same form as you entered it earlier. In the same group there is a “switch” for the “USB Power” current consumed by the USB flash drive, 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 the design features of the flash drive itself and cannot be changed programmatically in any way. The value determined by this “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 from this 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, when the flash drive is connected, the system considers that it “has the right” to lower the current strength to the specified 200 mA, and the flash drive, of course, will stop working. Therefore, it is better not to gain some 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 "USB-ZIP"; and in the field "Disk Label" ("Disk label") you must repeat (yes, for the third time!) What you indicated in the fields "Product Str" (from the first group) and "Product" (from the second group ).

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 that are 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. For us, it doesn’t matter, since when “flashing” all the information on the flash drive will be lost in any case.
• "Pretest" - " pre double test". This refers to the test of flash drive memory cells. By default, the “daw” is on, the option “Erase Good Block Only” is selected (“overwrite only good blocks”). Flash drives, like hard drives, during manufacture, they undergo a complete memory test, as a result of which unstable memory blocks are identified and marked in a special way in order to exclude 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 only tests those blocks that were marked as "good". Some older types of controllers "were not able" to implement this method in practice, therefore, if there are problems during "flashing", you can change the value of this parameter to "Erase All Block" ("overwrite all blocks"). This will slow down the "flashing" process, but may be able to help if problems arise.
• "Write CID" - "a way to write information." By default, the “daw” is on, “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 item does not make much sense - if the program "recognizes" the connected USB flash drive, then it will select suitable type"firmware"; if not, then choosing something manually in our particular case is pointless, since you still won’t really “flash” a flash drive.
• "Copy Test" - perform a preliminary test of copying information to a USB flash drive. By default, the “daw” is on, 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 on; to speed up the "flashing" process, it can be disabled.
• "Make Auto Run" - "create startup". The name is not entirely accurate, since it is the inclusion of this item (marked with a “daw”) that provides us with the opportunity to load an ISO image of the desired disk onto a USB flash drive during “flashing”. After the item becomes active, a field for entering 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, should be as short as possible, without Cyrillic characters and spaces! Activation of the “CDROM Only” sub-item turns on a mode in which the free space remaining on the flash drive after the image is written is blocked (until the next “flashing”) and becomes unavailable for use. Deactivating this sub-item, respectively, allows you to use the remaining free space as a regular removable disk, that is, one physical flash drive will be detected by the system as a composite device from an external CD / DVD drive and regular flash drive. On my own behalf, I want to add that, despite the seeming temptation of this method, which consists in the fact that you are allowed to use the entire volume of an honestly paid flash drive, this method is fraught with problems in the future, since not all computers can boot through the BIOS from such a “composite” flash drive. Personally, I am ready to sacrifice the remaining half of the volume of the flash drive for the sake of maximum compatibility, so I will activate this item. If you still chose the option with a “composite” device, then by checking the checkboxes on the checkboxes below, you can immediately set the formatting mode for the remaining volume of the flash drive and select the type of file system.
• "Preload" - "preload". By default, there is no checkbox and this item is inactive. We do not need to change its state. Activating this item means simply writing some of your data to a USB flash drive during the “flashing” process - in much the same way as you do it using the usual Windows "Explorer". Of course, such a data download is possible only 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 "flashing" 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 developers of the program added this item to the settings and the next one, which is called ...
• "Disk Read Only" - "read-only disk". By default, the "daw" is not worth it. In relation to our task, it does not play a special role, since the CD / DVD disk resulting from flashing the flash drive, even with the “Disk Read Only” parameter inactive, will still be “read-only”. But in the event that you do not create on a flash drive CD-ROM partition 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". By default, the "daw" is. It is advisable to leave this item active in order to once again make sure that the “flashing” process has completed properly.

As a result of all the ordeals with the settings, you should get something like the following (here, those items that I considered it 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), after which, in the standard window that opens, select the already existing “default.ini” file (2) and click on the “OK” button (3) :

I 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 have performed the described actions, the settings selection window will close, and the program will automatically switch to work with the updated configuration file (in case of creating a new configuration file - until restart).

After the configuration file is edited properly, you can proceed directly to the "flashing" process.

"Flashing" the flash drive controller

Before starting the “flashing” (or even better, before connecting the USB flash drive), it is highly desirable to suspend the antivirus. Yes, yes, of course, I remember that you have already added our working folder to the antivirus exclusions, however, do not forget that in the process of “flashing” the service utility will have to go “to the side” - to where the specified in the settings is stored file-image, and the anti-virus monitor slowing down the flow of data “flowing” from one disk to another is fraught with the most unforeseen errors. All other application programs that are not related to the flashing process should also be terminated. In addition, I note that it is very rare and not on all computers, but, nevertheless, it happens that the monitor’s energy saving functions that are forgotten by the user and activated at the wrong time during the “flashing” process, hard drives, motherboard, as well as the inclusion of the splash screen, make it impossible to complete it correctly. Therefore, instead of taking risks and checking in practice with an unpredictable result for a flash drive, whether your computer is “the same”, I would advise you to temporarily disable all power saving functions for the above devices, and either disable the screen saver for a while, or set a longer interval operation - at least one hour. During this time, firstly, in any case, you will perform some actions; secondly, it will become clear how great are the chances for the success of our event.

After work antivirus program is suspended, the energy-saving functions of the hardware are disabled, and the time before the splash screen is triggered is increased, insert a suitable USB flash drive into a free USB port:

We launch the program-"flasher". If your computer is running Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8, then use the "Run as Administrator" function. Since I have the good old Windows XP, I do without such troubles and just run the program file for execution. The main window of the service utility opens before us:

First of all, use the mouse to click on 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 of pressing the button - on-screen or keyboard - it doesn’t matter, 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 swing! :-)), the status value "Ready" ("Ready"), the volume accessible flash memory, controller model and unique flash drive serial number (2);
• secondly, in one of the boxes corresponding to the same 16 USB ports, the value will appear total volume flash drives, an incomprehensible index "2" (the second version of the representation?), and to the right and below the main square a small additional one will appear, filled in blue, corresponding to the same status of the controller "Ready" (3);
• thirdly, in the lowest information window, the name of the flash drive controller model and the corresponding binary firmware, automatically selected by the service utility (4), will appear.

If, after pressing the “Scan USB” button, the listed changes did not occur, then this indicates either some physical problems with the USB flash drive / USB port, or that the program does not “know” anything at all about the connected USB flash drive. Sometimes it also happens that, based on the results of the scan, 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 font not blue, but red (the small additional square in the field becomes the same color graphic representation(3)). Unlike the previous situation, when the program did not “know” anything at all about the connected flash drive, this means that the program “recognized” the flash drive, but it (the program) does not have a binary firmware suitable for this type of controller at its disposal. In this case, it remains only to look for a newer and (or) suitable version of the “flash driver” program.

Let's hope that you correctly identified the model of the flash drive controller, took the choice of the service utility with all seriousness and that everything is in order with the USB ports on your computer, so in the program window in blue, symbolizing inspiration (didn't you know? : -)), a promising "Ready" status is displayed. This is the last step, when you can "painlessly" refuse to "flash" the flash drive if you suddenly change your mind. And if not, then you just have to click on the “Start” button with the “mouse” (the uppermost at the right edge of the program window), or, which is the same, press the “Space” key on the keyboard (1):

After that, in the very first line, which used to show off the inscription “Ready”, in the “Progress” column, a progress indicator will start, similar to the one that is standard for Windows (2). Please note that it will be filled and reset again several times, since the “flashing” process consists of several successive stages (have you forgotten a lot of settings in the configuration file yet? ;-)), and the indicator shows the current progress everyone process in turn. You can find out exactly at what stage the process of “flashing” is currently located by looking at the second version of the presentation of 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 “flashing” process (3) will be displayed in the form of a text inscription. In this case, it is clear that the screenshot was taken at the moment when the preliminary testing was performed, which is clearly indicated by the inscription “Test” against the background of the first square. In the lower right corner of the program, the counter of the time elapsed since the beginning 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 data transfer rate over the USB bus is strictly regulated by the relevant standards, many factors influence the execution time of the “flashing” process, both explicit (the number of stages during the “flashing”, the standard of the USB port, the size of the ISO image), and and hidden (configuration and characteristics of the computer disk subsystem, parallel execution system processes, controller modification). In any case, you should be patient and in no case interrupt the “flashing” process, if the counter continues to count seconds, the indicator scale moves slowly, but the inscriptions change on the square symbolizing the USB port. Of course, if, for example, for a whole hour the inscription “Test” is not replaced by the inscription “Load” (“Loading”), and the indicator either stands still or fills / resets cyclically, one will have to draw a sad conclusion that that the "flashing" currently failed and crash the program. But again, this is extreme a case that should not be resorted to without extreme necessity and clear evidence of the “freezing” of the “flashing” process.

Evidence of the successful completion of the “flashing” process is the “reset” progress indicator, the 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 my On a computer, flashing an 8 GB flash drive with preliminary testing and recording a 3.3 GB ISO image took a little more than 13 minutes and ended quite successfully.

After the long-awaited inscriptions “OK” “light up” in the service utility window, close the program and safe way we extract our flash drive.

Remember - at the first moment after the "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 right and the "flashing" process completed successfully, after which you turned off in a safe way flash drive and remove it from the USB socket. What's next? And then we have to check the result of the "flashing" by testing our flash drive in action. Therefore, without postponing the matter in long box(as a rule, human nature is arranged in such a way that you want to quickly see the result of your work), let's start testing. To do this, we reconnect our experimental flash drive to the computer:

But what do we see? A computer that has been “familiar” with our flash drive for a long time (it detected it at the very first connection and installed the appropriate driver), just worked with it and into which, after just a few seconds, we re-inserted it, informs us about that “Found new equipment” - but not a flash drive at all, but first we are talking about a certain “REPAIR USB DISK USB Device”, and then it is specified 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:

It is obvious that it belongs to the class "Devices with removable media", and is displayed as a CD / DVD drive (in my case, it is assigned the letter "G:") with the "REPAIR" disc inserted into it.

Do you still have doubts that the drive is "not real"? Then let's look at its properties:

From what is shown to us by the operating system in the properties window this device, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that the drive is the most "real", with the CDFS file system, which is the "calling card" of real CDs, and total absence free space for the record.

How is his security situation? Maybe the USB flash drive only skillfully "pretends" to be a CD / DVD drive, but in fact remains accessible to each and every standard random access media? To answer this question, let's try to write some arbitrary file to it (I'll try to copy the "readme.txt" file from the archive with the "flash driver" program for testing):

Does not work! We are politely but firmly given to understand that this, so to speak, “disk” is “read-only” and you cannot copy or move files to it. Well, what am I, in fact, repeating the standard Windows message? Have you never seen it yourself? ;-)

Thus, it turns out that we really “turned” the USB flash drive into a CD / DVD drive, once again making sure that it is now really recognized by the system as a real CD / DVD drive and burn or change stored on it (or all - still "on it"?) files there is no possibility, but - I hope you have not forgotten yet? - we are interested in another important feature of our "flashed" flash drive, namely, the ability to boot a computer from it through the BIOS. Therefore, the last and most important stage of verification awaits us ahead.

We leave the USB flash drive connected to the computer and reboot it. At the time the BIOS firmware is running, we call boot menu(as a rule, by pressing one of the keys like "F + number" - 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 boot:

After we confirm our choice by pressing the "Enter" key, we make sure that the computer has really booted from our flash drive (of course, the "picture" resulting from this on the monitor will depend on which ISO image you have chosen to write to flashing process):

Congratulations - you not only became the proud owner of a unique flash drive, but also mastered the technique for making such flash drives!

Possible problems and solutions

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 can occur. I sincerely wish you a successful completion of each “flashing”, but if it nevertheless happens that the process ends with an error or does not complete at all (“hangs”), I hope this section can help you, in which I tried to collect descriptions and possible solutions to the most common problems. At the same time, I ask you not to consider the material presented here as "the ultimate truth." to one person who owns one(well, let's say, even two or three) computers, and having "reflashed" only two dozen flash drives out of the 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, such a situation is quite possible 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 look for information about the problem 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, friends...).

So, now directly a description of possible problems and ways to solve them:

Description of the problem	Clarification	Possible reason	Solution method
The service utility does not "see" the flash drive	The operating system also does not "see" the flash drive	Physical failure of the flash drive	Replace the flash drive with a working one
		Physical failure of the USB port	Connect the flash drive to a different USB port
		Failure of the "south bridge" of the motherboard	Repair or replace the motherboard
		Support for USB devices is disabled at the BIOS level"a	Enable BIOS support for USB devices
		The corresponding USB controller is disabled at the operating system level	Enable the USB controller (for example, through the "Device Manager")
		Not installed at all or incorrect drivers for the motherboard installed	Check and update motherboard drivers if necessary
		The flash drive is not getting enough power: a power-intensive device (for example, USB speakers) is connected to the adjacent USB socket; flash drive is connected to the USB socket on the front panel system block; flash drive connected via extension cable	temporarily disable an additional device; connect the USB flash drive to the USB socket on the back of the system unit (directly to the motherboard); replace the extension cable with a shorter one or connect the USB flash drive to the computer “directly”
	The operating system "sees" the flash drive		Temporarily disable antivirus 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 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 issued: "Not ready" "Initial Param Fail" "ISP can't be found"	The service utility cannot find a firmware file suitable for this controller model	Choose supportive given 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.	check and, if necessary, make changes to the configuration file by selecting more appropriate parameters; cancel the execution of this stage in the process of "flashing" by making the corresponding item in the configuration file inactive (if possible!)
		The integrity of the ISO image being written to the flash drive during the flashing process has been violated	Check the integrity of the ISO image being used, update or replace it if necessary
	The problem occurs at different stages of the "flashing" process	The operation of the service utility is hindered by the activated power-saving functions of computer components	Disable or suspend all power saving features (both software and hardware)
		The operation of the service utility is interfered with by activity anti-virus tools or other third party software	Temporarily disable anti-virus protection, as well as currently unnecessary software running in the "background" mode
		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	A message is displayed: "Bad Block over setting"	Detected number of unstable flash blocks exceeds the maximum specified value	open the configuration file for editing and on the "Capaciti Setting" tab, set the value of the "Bad Block" parameter to 100; in the configuration file, set the value of the “Pretest” parameter to “Erase All Block”; simultaneously use the recommendations from paragraph 1 and paragraph 2
	A message is displayed: "Bad Block over setting (User... > FW...)»	An unrecoverable error has occurred with the flash memory	take advantage of specialized software(for example, the utility "DYNA"); replace the flash drive with a better one (recommended!)