How to copy from disk to disk, to a flash drive, to a cassette. Flashing a flash drive into a DVD drive with a mounted ISO image Copying from a floppy disk to a flash drive

Browse to the folder with the files you want to copy. Open an Explorer window; to do this, click ⊞ Win + E. Scroll through the left pane with a list of drives and folders to find the folder with the files you need.

• User files are typically stored in the Documents or My Documents folder.
• If you're looking for photos or music, go to your Pictures or Music folder.

Insert the flash drive into a USB port on your computer. U desktop computer USB ports are on the front and/or rear panels case, and sometimes on the back of the monitor. The laptop's USB ports are located on the side panels.

Find the folder on the flash drive to copy the files to. They can be copied to any folder on the flash drive.

• When you connect the drive to your computer, a pop-up window will likely open. In it, find the option “Open folder to view files” (or similar). Click on this option to go to the root (main) folder of the flash drive. Files can be copied directly to the root folder or to any subfolder.
• If the window does not open, click ⊞ Win + E to open a new File Explorer window, and then double-click your USB drive's name in the left pane. The name will be: “USB drive”, “Removable disk” or similar. The name can also be the name of the drive manufacturer (for example, “Sandisk”).
• Create new folder and give it a name that matches its contents. To create a new folder on the flash drive, press Ctrl + ⇧ Shift + N, and then enter a name (such as "Personal", "Photos", etc.). Now click ↵Enter. Double-click the new folder to open it.

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

Copyright notice

To be honest, at first I didn’t want to include this section in my article at all. However, after some thought, I decided to do it. Why? Well, firstly, this is the fashion now ;-) Secondly, I thought that it would really be nice to familiarize readers in advance with the principles that I adhered to 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 was taken “out of thin air” and has never been verified by anyone. Just the opposite - I personally, using the method I outlined here, “reflashed” at least two dozen flash drives, and all operations, except for one single time, were completed successfully. Speaking of disclaimer, I only draw your attention to the fact that due to such objective factors that are not in any way controlled by me, such as: a huge variety of models and modifications of flash drives, possible mistakes in the software used, different hardware and software configurations of computers and no less different levels of user training, everything that works fine on my computer may not work on yours. Additionally, I would like to note that the method I describe is not standard and pre-provided for their products by manufacturers of flash memory modules, therefore All operations described in this article are performed at your own peril and risk.. Remember this! If, as a result of performing the manipulations described below, you suffer any material and/or moral damage, please address all claims only to yourself. ABOUT possible I warned you about the risk of further actions. 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 this or that software that we need for our work. So, I warn you in advance that I have nothing to do with the owners of these pages, much less with the developers of the software posted 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 is not located at the specified links, or it is infected with viruses, or damages your computer in any way - again, all complaints should be addressed either to the authors of the resources or to the program developers (if, of course, you manage to find them), or to yourself.

And one last thing. Since I strongly doubt that the topic of my article will interest novice computer users, I initially count on a trained reader. Therefore, I will try to present those aspects that are directly related to the topic of the article as clearly and detailed language, but I will not pay attention (except perhaps 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 even needed), you, dear readers, should already know. If you (suddenly!) don’t know this, then it’s clearly premature for you to read my article - except as information for “general development” to know that “this also happens.”

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

To answer this question, we will have to start from afar.

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

Around the mid-2000s, CDs, which had previously almost reigned supreme in 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-year delay before their widespread distribution is explained solely by the small volume and high cost of producing the first production samples. However, from the very beginning, flash memory technology had such obvious advantages over traditional methods of storing information that it was only a matter of time before bringing certain specific parameters to perfection.

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 memory drives have one very serious drawback - security. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof. An interesting, but understandable, fact is that the viral “stock” transmitted through storage media existed at a small but stable level until the mid-90s (during 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 their 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, writing to which is impossible in principle. Until CDs had a viable alternative, both users and manufacturers were forced 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! Virus writers would have to build into each of their “creations” a full-fledged program for writing optical discs, which would immediately negate such important characteristics for viruses as secrecy, speed and small volume. Apparently, keeping in mind the problems so typical for optical disks, the developers of flash memory modules decided to make life easier for end users. And viruses. Since a flash drive, on a par with a floppy disk, hard drive, does not require any third-party software to record information and any operations can be performed through standard Windows Explorer, all barriers to viruses that prevent them from penetrating to a flash drive and back have disappeared. And considering how popular this type of media is now, one can imagine the level of interest in them on the part of virus authors and the approximate scale of the epidemic. Sometimes it’s quite simple. to plug flash drive to the infected computer so that it can immediately take up residence on it someone(I had to deal with viruses that automatically scanned USB ports for the presence of storage devices and, if any were found, immediately wrote a copy of themselves to them or performed some destructive actions). A few years ago, it was still possible to 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, nowadays such flash drives are almost never found. The reason for the refusal by manufacturers to such an inexpensive but extremely useful improvement is not known to me. Judging by some reviews posted on the Internet, such microswitches have a short mechanical life and fail quite quickly, 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 may indeed be 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 at all! No self-respecting surgeon would perform an operation with a dirty, unsterile instrument. In this sense, the work of a doctor and a professional computer scientist has much in common - in both cases, sterility is extremely important. You can, of course, take a “step back” and write the entire necessary set of programs onto the good old optical discs of the “...-R” modification, but...

First of all, a complete set professional programs to restore the computer's functionality, as a rule, it has a volume significantly exceeding the capacity of one disk, so you will have to carry with you not just one, but a whole set of disks, which, you see, is no longer good...

Secondly, optical disks, which serve as “workhorses”, constantly transported whenever, wherever and in anything, deteriorate quite quickly, becoming dusty and covered with scratches.

Thirdly, even the most “advanced” modifications of DVDs provide very mediocre, by modern standards, reading speed. It happens that loading the system from such a resuscitation disk takes up to 10-15 minutes. I don’t argue that some people will agree to wait 10 or 15 minutes, or even a whole hour - it would be just something to wait for, but, you see, if there is an opportunity to significantly increase the productivity of their work, it would be a sin not to take advantage of this opportunity.

Fourthly, such a once standard and mandatory device as a DVD drive, in modern computer increasingly becoming persona non grata, in laptop computers it was not there “from birth”, and I won’t say anything about Blu-Ray drives at all... At the same time, not only are almost all types of computers equipped with USB ports, but the number of these useful ports is steadily growing. 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, I really don’t want to give up the now familiar flash drives in favor of optical disks! “But there’s no need! - an experienced user will say. - Isn’t the Internet littered with programs that allow you to write an “image” to a flash drive? the desired disk? And he will be right... Partly. Most of these programs - DirectGRUB, WinSetupFromUSB, WinToFlash, UnetBootIn, ROSAImageWriter - and dozens of others like them really do a good job, but, firstly, they do not give the user “freedom of maneuver”, clearly “tying” him to the “image” of this or that other type; and secondly, despite the 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, delete some files from it, or, conversely, add some information.

However, there is a method that allows you to write absolute contents to a flash drive. any the disk you need with the ability to boot from this flash drive, and its contents will be reliably protected from “invasion” - creating a CD-ROM (DVD-ISO) partition on a flash drive and recording an “image” of the desired disk into it.

Why is “reflashing” possible?

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

What is needed for “reflashing”?

To successfully complete this interesting procedure we will 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;
• flashing program;
• actually, the “firmware” itself (in 99% of cases it is supplied with the program);
• ISO image of the desired disk;
• any instructions (for example, this article);
• approximately one hour of free time;
• straight arms and crooked brains (but in no case vice versa! ;-))

As I already said, you must know what an ISO image is and have it available (download from the Internet, “remove” it from an existing optical disk, “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 here for you personally, since the topic is so vast and multifaceted that it deserves a separate article. As a last resort, 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 necessary “image”.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the most difficult stage is, oddly enough, the preparatory stage. The most difficult thing is to choose a mutually suitable “flash drive - program” pair. If you managed to pick such a pair, then with a 99% probability everything that follows will end successfully.

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

This leads to three possible strategies for our search:

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

The most preferable for beginning sewing mechanics... oh, no - programmers, are flash drives on SMI controllers. Phison controllers are a little more complicated to flash, but in general, it’s also not bad, but it’s better not to mess with Alcor and SSS controllers unless absolutely necessary. With regard to flash drive brands, the products of greatest interest to us are “A-Data” and “Apacer” (most), “Kingston” and “Transcend” (minor).

If you fundamentally do not want to waste time and money searching for the desired flash drive model, but want to “reflash” the one you already have at all costs, try first looking for a suitable “flashing” program here: and here:. The site listed first - usbdev.ru - contains a more complete and detailed file archive, and the likelihood of finding the most latest version the desired program it's much higher here. At the same time, its “completeness” and richness of information also have reverse side- for a beginner, as a rule, it is very difficult to decide which software from the ones available on the site he really needs. The site listed second - flashboot.ru - has a simpler structure and a rather nice appearance, but it is not a fact that here, firstly, you will be able to find the program you need, and secondly, that this program will be the latest. Also, when selecting the right software, you should not forget that both of these sites are dedicated to USB drives at all, 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 functionality of flash drives, monitor, diagnose media, low-level formatting, provide the ability loading from a flash drive and other things.

Demonstration equipment

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

• Since I decided to combine useful with... useful - to write this article and create a new repair flash drive-DVD-ROM for my needs, I first of all paid attention to the type of case. In this model of 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 - even protected from moisture penetration (although I haven’t personally checked ;-)).
• The ISO image I have, which I was going to “upload” to a flash drive, occupies a volume of approximately 3.3 gigabytes, so, of course, I could get by with a four-gigabyte one, but flash drives with a capacity of less than 8 gigabytes do not exist in this design .
• and finally, most importantly, I managed to find information that this model Flash drives are 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 of which there are: brief instructions, an insert with advertising information and a transparent blister, which, in turn, contains the flash drive itself and the branded “Transcend” strap (cute, but extremely short, clearly intended to increase convenience manipulations with a flash drive, but not for carrying):

The flash drive itself is not full-size, but not miniature either - overall dimensions (length*width*thickness in millimeters): 37*12*4.5. In general, “slim” ;-)

Controller Model Definition

First of all, let's create a working folder in the root of one of the local drives of your computer, into 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 won’t hurt to immediately add this folder to the exceptions of your antivirus, since, for example, my vigilant “watchman” “Dr.Web”er, the first time I accessed this folder, moved about a third of software modules in "Quarantine", considering them "potentially dangerous" and "possibly infected".

After we have decided on the working folder, we launch the browser available on the system (in my case, “ Mozilla Firefox") and in the address bar we type the following: . On the page that opens, click on the “Download program” link located below (2). The archive with the program offered for downloading takes up approximately 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 on the system, unpack it into the previously created “USBreFLASH” folder. As a result of this, a folder of the same name “usbflashinfo” and text file"File_id.diz" containing short description program versions. Since this file is not needed for the program to work and is only an eyesore, we delete it with a clear conscience.

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

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

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

So, we make sure that with the flash drive in this moment no one and nothing works, 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 obtained 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, upon subsequent launch, refuses to work and asks you to download an updated version - there is no need to worry or be afraid of this, the program developers do not require money from you (at least for now ;-)), so you should not neglect the update O it.

Search for service utility

So, we managed to determine specific model controller on which our flash drive is assembled. Now is the time to start looking for a suitable flashing program. I hope you haven’t forgotten the address of this 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’ll 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, differing 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 find the version of the program we need, we again launch the browser available on the system and type in the address bar: :

Slowly “scrolling” the page that opens, 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. Let me remind you that in this case we are interested in the line containing . After the required line is found, download this version utilities 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” with program files and a text file “readme.txt” with a link to the source site appear in our working folder. Since the “readme.txt” file does not have any practical value, we simply delete it so as not to clutter up 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 or Cyrillic characters), I would advise, for convenience, to shorten the name of the folder somewhat , to, for example, this: “smi_mptool_3257enba”. I repeat - the flasher program will launch perfectly and will work even without renaming the folder in which it is stored, so the purpose of renaming is just to make it a little easier for the user to navigate 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 in a form unsuitable for our purpose, is still present in the folder with 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 firmware program to in what way you need to “flash” the flash drive controller. Since the configuration file, despite the unusual (in the eyes of a layman) extension “.ini”, as already mentioned, is a regular text file, it can be edited even using standard Windows text editor"Notebook". True, this is a thankless task and a bit complicated for beginners, so we will make changes to the configuration file directly through the interface of the flasher program, which has a special button exclusively for this purpose (well done, Chinese!). In general, the need to edit it is explained by the fact that the configuration file included with the service utility is intended, first of all, to restore the functionality of ordinary flash drives, so there is no possibility of “transforming” a standard flash drive into a “default” CD/DVD drive » 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 need to sequentially:

• click 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 your entry by pressing the “OK” button (3):

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

There is nothing stopping you from creating several different configuration files over time so that you can choose the one most suitable 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 neither rename nor delete this file do not do it. 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 “default” configuration file 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 this, the program will “think” for a few seconds, and when it “comes to its senses,” the file you selected will be installed as a working file. You can determine which configuration file is currently in use by looking at the title of the window of the running program, in the center of which, delimited on both sides by continuous underscore characters, 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 imposed on the program itself - the file name ( and all the way to it!) should be as short as possible and should not contain spaces or characters from the Russian alphabet.

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

All the settings contained in the first tab of the window, called “Main Flow Setting” (“my main settings”) - and we are only interested in this one tab for now - can be divided into five groups:

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

From the first group of settings we will need only two lines - “Vendor Str” (“Vendor Name”) and “Product Str” (“Product Name”). In principle, the information they contain 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 out these fields, Latin letters, numbers and even a space character are acceptable. Since I create bootable USB flash drive in the form of a CD/DVD drive for repairing broken computers, then the ISO image that I plan to “upload” to a flash drive is called “Repair”. Accordingly, it will be more convenient for me if my repair flash drive is designated as “REPAIR USB DISK”. This means that in the “Vendor Str” field I need to enter the word “REPAIR” (without quotes), and leave the “Product Str” field as is. Of course, you can change the contents of these fields to your liking, for example, by 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 manufacturer name and product name in exactly the same form as you entered it earlier. In the same group there is a “switch” for the current consumed by the flash drive “USB Power”, 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 design features the flash drive itself and cannot be changed in any way programmatically. The value determined by this “sort of 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 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 the system, when connecting the flash drive, will consider that it “has the right” to reduce the current to the specified 200 mA, and The flash drive, of course, will stop working. Therefore, it is better not to win any 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 set to “USB-ZIP”; and in the “Disk Label” field you must repeat (yes, for the third time!) what you indicated in the “Product Str” (from the first group) and “Product” (from the second group) fields ).

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 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. It doesn’t matter to us, since when “flashing” all the information on the flash drive will be lost in any case.
• "Pretest" - " pre adjuvant test" This refers to a test of flash drive memory cells. By default, the “daw” is checked, the “Erase Good Block Only” option is selected (“to erase only good blocks”). Flash drives, like hard drives, undergo full memory testing during manufacturing, as a result of which unstable memory blocks are identified and marked in a special way to prevent 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 tests only those blocks that were marked as “good”. Some older types of controllers “did not know how” to implement this method in practice, therefore, if problems arise during “flashing”, you can change the value of this parameter to “Erase All Block”. This will slow down the flashing process, but may help if problems arise.
• “Write CID” - “a method of recording information.” By default, the “daw” is checked, “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 point does not make much sense - if the program “recognizes” the connected flash drive, then it will select suitable type"firmware"; if not, then select something manually in our specific case It’s pointless, since you won’t really “flash” the flash drive anyway.
• “Copy Test” - perform a preliminary test of copying information to a flash drive. By default, the “daw” is checked, 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 turned on; To speed up the flashing process, you can disable it.
• “Make Auto Run” - “create an autorun”. The name is not entirely accurate, since it is precisely the inclusion of this item (checked) that gives us the opportunity to load an ISO image of the desired disk onto a flash drive during flashing. After the item becomes active, a field to enter 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, must be as short as possible, without Cyrillic characters and spaces! Activating the “CDROM Only” sub-item enables a mode in which the free space remaining on the flash drive after recording the image is blocked (until subsequent flashing) and becomes unavailable for use. Deactivating this sub-item, accordingly, allows you to use the remaining free space as usual removable drive, that is, one physical flash drive will be detected by the system as a composite device of an external CD/DVD drive and a regular flash drive. On my own behalf, I would like to add that, despite the seeming tempting of this method, which consists in the fact that you are allowed to use the entire volume of a honestly paid for flash drive, this method is fraught with problems in the future, since not all computers can boot via BIOS from such a “composite” flash drive. Personally, I’m ready to sacrifice the remaining half of the flash drive’s capacity for the sake of providing maximum compatibility, so I activate this item. If you nevertheless chose the option with a “composite” device, then by checking the checkboxes on the checkboxes located below, you can immediately set the formatting mode for the remaining capacity of the flash drive and select the file system type.
• "Preload" - "pre-load". By default, there is no checkbox and this item is inactive. We don't need to change its state. Activation of this item implies simple entry some of your data onto a flash drive during the “flashing” process - in much the same way as you do it using regular Windows Explorer. Of course, such data loading is only possible if you Not create a CD-ROM, or at least leave free space on the flash drive (see previous point). The question is, why add this option to the settings? What, after “reflashing” 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 program developers added this item and the next one to the settings, which is called...
• “Disk Read Only” - “read-only disk”. By default, there is no checkbox. In relation to our task, it does not play a special role, since the CD/DVD disk obtained after flashing a flash drive, even with the “Disk Read Only” parameter inactive, will still be “read-only”. But if you do not create a partition on a CD-ROM flash drive 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.” The default is "daw". It is advisable to leave this item active to once again make sure that the “flashing” process was completed properly.

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

Let me 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 complete the described actions, the settings selection window will close, and the program will automatically switch to working with the updated configuration file (in case of creating a new configuration file - before restarting).

After the configuration file has been properly edited, you can proceed directly to the “flashing” process.

“Reflashing” the flash drive controller

Before starting the “flashing” (or even better, before connecting a flash drive), it is highly advisable to pause the antivirus. Yes, yes, I, of course, remember that you have already added our working folder to the antivirus exceptions, however, do not forget that in the process of “flashing” the service utility will have to go “outside” - to where the one specified in the settings is stored file-image, and braking by an anti-virus monitor the flow of data “flowing” from one disk to another is fraught with the emergence of the most unexpected errors. Everyone else's work application programs, not related to the flashing process, should also be completed. Additionally, I note that it is very rare and not on all computers, but, nevertheless, it happens that the monitor’s energy saving functions, forgotten by the user and activated at the wrong time during the “flashing” process, hard drives, motherboard, as well as turning on the screensaver, make it impossible to complete it correctly. Therefore, instead of taking risks and checking in practice with a result unpredictable for a flash drive whether you have the “right” computer, I would advise you to temporarily disable all energy saving functions for the above devices, and either turn off the screensaver for a while or set a longer interval activation - at least one hour. During this time, firstly, you will take some actions in any case; secondly, it will become clear how great the chances of success of our event are.

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

We launch the flasher program. If your computer has the Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 operating system installed, then use the “Run as Administrator” function. Since I have good old Windows XP, I do without such problems and simply launch the program file for execution. The main window of the service utility opens before us:

First of all, use the mouse to click 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 you press a button - on-screen or keyboard - it makes no difference, 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 scope! :-)), the status value “Ready”, volume accessible flash memory, controller models and unique serial number flash drives (2);
• secondly, in one of the squares corresponding to the same 16 USB ports, the value will appear total volume flash drives, an obscure index “2” (the second representation option?), and to the right and below the main square there will be a small additional one, filled with blue, corresponding to the same controller status “Ready” (3);
• thirdly, in the lowest information window the name of the flash drive controller model and the corresponding binary firmware will appear, automatically selected by the service utility (4).

If, after pressing the “Scan USB” button, the listed changes do not occur to you, then this indicates either some physical problem with the flash drive/USB port, or that the program does not “know” anything at all about the connected flash drive. Sometimes it happens that, based on the scan results, 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 red rather than blue font (the small additional square in the graphical representation field (3) also becomes the same color. Unlike the previous situation, when the program “knew” nothing at all about the connected flash drive, this means that the program I “recognized” the flash drive, but it (the program) does not have at its disposal the binary firmware suitable specifically for this type of controller. In this case, all that remains is to look for a newer and (or) one. suitable version flasher program.

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

After this, in the very first line, which previously had the inscription “Ready”, in the “Progress” column a progress indicator similar to the one that is standard for Windows (2) will start. Please note that it will fill up and reset again some times, since the “flashing” process consists of several successive stages (we haven’t forgotten many settings in configuration file? ;-)), and the indicator shows the current progress everyone process one by one. You can find out exactly what stage the flashing process is currently at by looking at the second option for representing 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 “reflashing” process will be displayed in the form of a text inscription (3). In this case, it is clear that the screenshot was taken at the moment when the preliminary testing was performed, as clearly evidenced by the inscription “Test” in the background of the first square. In the lower right corner of the program, a counter of the time elapsed since the start 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 speed USB bus is strictly regulated by relevant standards, the duration of the “flashing” process is influenced by many factors, both obvious (the number of stages during “flashing”, USB port standard, ISO image size) and hidden (configuration and characteristics of the computer’s disk subsystem, parallel execution of system processes, modification of the controller). In any case, you should be patient and under no circumstances interrupt the “reflashing” process if the counter continues to count seconds, the indicator scale moves slowly, and the inscriptions on the square symbolizing the USB port change. Of course, if, for example, for a whole hour the inscription “Test” is not replaced by the inscription “Load”, and the indicator either stands still or cyclically fills/resets, you will have to make a sad conclusion that that the “flashing” has currently failed and the program will crash. But, I repeat, this is - extreme a case that should not be resorted to unless absolutely necessary and without clear evidence of the “freezing” of the “flashing” process.

Certificate successful completion of the “reflashing” process are a “reset” progress indicator, a 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 mine On the computer, “reflashing” an 8-gigabyte flash drive with preliminary testing and recording an ISO image with a capacity of 3.3 gigabytes took a little more than 13 minutes and ended quite successfully.

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

Remember - at the first moment after 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 correctly and the flashing process was completed successfully, after which you safely disconnected the flash drive and removed it from the USB connector. What's next? And then we have to check the result of the “flashing” by testing our flash drive in action. Therefore, without delaying the matter (as a rule, human nature is designed in such a way that you want to quickly see the result of your work), let’s start testing. To do this, we again connect our experimental flash drive to the computer:

But what do we see? A computer that has long been “familiar” with our flash drive (it identified it even at the very first connection and installed the appropriate driver), has just worked with it and into which we, after just a few seconds, reinserted it, informs us about that “New equipment was found” - but not a flash drive at all, but first we are talking about a certain “REPAIR USB DISK USB Device”, and then it is clarified 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:

Obviously, it is classified as a “Devices with removable media”, and is displayed as a CD/DVD drive (in my case it is assigned the letter “G:”) with a “REPAIR” disk inserted into it.

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

From what we have been shown operating system in the properties window of this device, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that the drive is the most “real” one, with the CDFS file system, which is the “calling card” of real CDs, and the complete absence free space for recording.

How are things going with his security? Maybe the flash drive only skillfully “pretends” to be a CD/DVD drive, but in fact remains a standard random access media accessible to everyone? To answer this question, let’s try to write some arbitrary file to it (for testing, I’ll try to copy the “readme.txt” file from the archive with the flasher program):

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

Thus, it turns out that we really “turned” the flash drive into a CD/DVD drive, along the way once again making sure that it is now really recognized by the system as a real CD/DVD drive and can write or change the data stored on it (or everything). “on it”?) files are not possible, but - I hope you haven’t forgotten yet? - we are interested in one more important feature our “reflashed” flash drive, namely the ability to boot a computer from it via BIOS. Therefore, the last and most important stage checks.

Leave the flash drive connected to the computer and reboot it. While the BIOS firmware is running, we call up the boot menu (usually by pressing one of the “F+digit” keys - 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 download:

After we confirm our choice by pressing the “Enter” key, we make sure that the computer actually boots from our flash drive (of course, the resulting “picture” on the monitor will depend on which ISO image you chose to write to process of “flashing”):

Congratulations - you have not only become happy owner a unique flash drive, but also mastered the technique of making such flash drives!

Possible problems and ways to solve them

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

So now the description itself possible problems and ways to solve them:

This is the twenty-first century, there are so many information carriers that you can easily get confused in them. Sometimes there are situations when it is necessary to rewrite from one medium necessary information another. Then the question arises in our minds: how to copy from disk to disk or from disk to flash drive, and so on? It is for this reason that we decided to write a short instruction on the census from one medium to another.

Of course, we will not consider the simplest options like “computer - flash drive” or vice versa. We are more interested in the question: how to rewrite from disk to disk or from cassette to disk? The second option is the most popular, since there are many recordings left on video cassettes that I would like to save.

Disk

Many people ask the question: how to copy the necessary information from disk to disk? We propose to consider this issue right now.

To copy from disk to disk, you need special program. Now there are quite a lot of them: both paid and free. Which ones can even a novice PC user handle? The most common among them are Nero, of which there are quite a lot now, different versions, paid and free, Ashampoo Burning Studio and ImgBurn. As for Nero, versions 6 and 8 are most suitable for beginners. They are very easy to use and completely Russified.

What should be done? First of all, install the program on your computer, following the installer's prompts. We invite you to get acquainted with the Ashampoo Burning Studio program. First, insert the disk that you need to copy; in the main program window, select the “Copy” item. When reading is complete, you need to paste blank disk, click the “Record” button. The registration process will not take long. Next, a window will pop up stating that everything was successful, you need to click “Ok”. That's it, you've done your job. Agree that everything is extremely simple. This program has clear interface, a large supply of tools, believe me, you will still need it. In addition, this software product is absolutely free.

Flash drive

Using the same program, we will analyze the question of how to copy from a flash drive to disk. There is nothing simpler, follow the instructions - and you will succeed:

1. Create a new folder on your computer.
2. Insert the USB flash drive and copy what you need into this folder.
3. If you want to record music, you need to insert a blank disc, open the program and select “Burn or convert music”, then “Create CD”.
4. A window has opened where you need to insert files that need to be written to disk. When the list is generated, click “Next” - “Record”.

As you can see, everything is quite simple, use this hint-instruction - and you will never have any difficulties.

Cassette

How much does it cost to digitize videotapes in salons? 200-300 rubles per hour. Now see how many videos you would like to save. Is it true that it is not profitable to go for these services? That is why we will now teach you how to copy everything you want from a cassette to a disk, spending no more than 1.5 thousand rubles on it.

What will we spend this money on? To special equipment called a TV tuner. It is available both externally (for a laptop) and internally (for a desktop computer). We will also need a tape recorder and a set of wires (usually included with a TV tuner). For external we need USB and bells, for internal - only the latter.

We connect the TV tuner, install software and drivers (discs are always included). We launch the program and insert the cassette, click "Start". Now it’s time to adjust the image clarity. A picture appeared on the monitor, very fuzzy, blurry, right-click on it and select “Channel Settings”. After we have received the quality we need, we wind the tape to the beginning and start recording, press the button with the circle. The video is now being recorded on your computer. After the recording ends, click "Stop".

That's it, the video is in your computer's memory. Now it can be rewritten to disk; we have already talked about how to do this and will look at some programs later. Please note that sometimes voids are formed in the resulting record, that is, places where there are no records. How to get rid of this? Using video editing and trimming programs, but this is a slightly different topic, we will not deviate from ours.

Telephone

This topic is very brief, because everything is very clear here. Have you recorded an interesting video on your phone and want to save these moments on disk? To do this, we need a computer, a USB cable from your phone and a disk. The sequence of your actions:

• Connect your phone to your computer.
• Find the files you need.
• Save them in your computer's memory.
• Insert disc.
• Use one of the CD or DVD burning programs.

Nero

Now let’s take a very brief look at one of the most popular programs. How to copy a DVD to disc? It's very simple, use the multifunctional multimedia center Nero. It is capable of not only recording discs, but also editing, reading, playing, creating, and copying. This product is often used to protect multimedia libraries because it has a backup function.

This software product is fraught with a lot of possibilities, and the extremely clear interface allows beginners to perform even very complex tasks.

ImgBurn

We have already looked at two software products, helping us with the recording issue. We invite you to read a few words about the capabilities of another utility - ImgBurn. How to rewrite a CD? Our product can help us in this matter. This program has big advantage- it is free, that is, it is more in demand. Possibilities:

• Burn CD and DVD from images.
• Creating ISOs from folders on hard drives.
• Supports dual-layer DVDs.
• Supports many types of images.

In the simplest case, we take the following steps.

Step 1. Connect the flash drive to the USB connector. If you have a USB 2.0 flash drive, then it can be connected to any USB connector. If the flash drive is USB 3.o, then it is better to connect it to the USB 3.o connector, since in this case the data transfer speed will be higher.

Step 2. Right-click on the file that needs to be written to the flash drive and select the command Send > Transcend (H). You can select several files at once by holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard. You can also send a folder with files to a flash drive. We will send the “Documents” folder to the flash drive.

In this case, Transcend is the manufacturer of the flash drive, and the Latin “H” is the drive letter. You may have a different manufacturer and drive letter

After this, the file copying process will begin.

Step 3. Now it remains to check that the folder with documents is written to the flash drive.

Why are files not copied to the flash drive?

In the example above, we were able to write the files without difficulty, but this is not always the case. Let's try to record a file with a video in HD format on the same flash drive, the duration of which is about 8 hours. First let's try to use file manager Total Commander and... we get an error message.

We try to copy using the method described above and again fail - the “File is too large” window appears.

Let's figure it out: the size of the file is 14.9 GB, and the capacity of the flash drive is 32 GB, i.e. The media volume is quite enough for copying. However, we read the Windows message again and pay attention to the words “too large for the target file system". In this case we are talking about the file system of the flash drive. By default, flash drives are formatted (labeled) using the FAT32 file system, which can be easily verified by clicking on the flash drive’s shortcut and selecting the Properties command.

The FAT32 file system has a file size limit of 4 GB, i.e. We are unable to write the file because it is larger than 4 GB.

How to write large files to a flash drive

Since our file is quite large (about 8 GB), we need to think about how to still write it to a flash drive. Besides FAT32, we can use file system NTFS, which allows you to write large files, i.e. more than 4 GB. We need to reformat the flash drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

Step 1. Right-click on the flash drive icon and select the Format command.

In the context menu, select “Format”

Step 2. Select file NTFS system and click the Start button.

Select the NTFS file system and click “Start”

Step 3. Formatting will destroy all data on the disk. Therefore, if the flash drive contains the files you need, then transfer them to your computer or laptop before formatting.