"jim" <jim@home.net> wrote in message
news:y3C1k.4159$bF6.3945@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
> How can I make XP see an external USB drive as an internal hard drive.
>
> There is an article posted at
> http://www.msfn.org/board/A-Multiple-Partition-USB-Stick-with-Mult-t69211.html#entry474505
> that claims to show how its done, but it has a link to a driver that no
> longer exists.
>
> I am still Googling, but haven't found an answer yet.
>
> I need to have XP see my external USB drives as internal drive so that my
> backup software will image the USB drives.
>
> Thanks!
>
> jim
Jim:
Just so we have a clear idea of your situation and objective...
Re the USBEHD that will serve as the "source" disk of the disk image...
I take it from your query that for one reason or another you're unable to
boot to your internal HDD with the USBEHD connected. Is that it? But
assuming the system is bootable, is there any reason why that USBEHD would
not be connected as would be the usual case?
Obviously if you had a bootable system (re your internal HDD) there would be
no problem using your installed disk-imaging program in creating a disk
image of the connected USBEHD and storing that image on another drive (which
I'm assuming is your intent). But I'm sure you're aware of this so I'm
puzzled as to your situation and intent.
Now if for one reason or another you do *not* have a bootable system, you
could still create a disk image of the USBEHD and store it on another drive,
presumably another USBEHD?
If you were using a disk-imaging program such as Acronis True Image, you can
create what Acronis calls its "bootable rescue media" - in effect a bootable
CD containing the ATI program. (Other disk-imaging/disk-cloning programs
have similar media). And you could use that media to create the disk image
of one USBEHD and store it on another drive, again presumably another USBEHD
if that's what you want.
I'm pretty sure you can do this with the Acronis program - it's been a while
since I worked with that program re the disk-imaging process.
Of course I'm puzzled as to why you want or need to perform this kind of
operation (unless I'm misunderstanding your intent).
I know that you can do this (again, if I correctly understand what you're
trying to do) with the disk-cloning program we routinely use - the Casper 4
program. But this is a disk-to-disk cloning program not a disk-imaging
program. The Casper program also has a bootable "Startup Disk" which
contains the program so that by connecting the two USBEHDs and using that
Startup Disk a user could clone the contents of one USBEHD to another
USBEHD. Again, I'm hard-pressed to understand the purpose of this.
Now that I re:read your query I'm thinking that the USBEHD that will serve
as your "source" drive is not being used (in its usual role) as the
recipient of the disk-image of your internal day-to-day working HDD. Is that
it? Your USBEHD contains different data from your internal HDD of one sort
or another so you want to create a disk image of that data. Do I have this
right?
Anna
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