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 Create a secret partition in pen drive.

In this post, you will come to know about how to create a secret partition in pen drive. With the growth of computer and technology we are now almost alienated to the use of floppy disc as a mode of transferring data. It was replaced by CDs and DVDs a long time back. But it seems that even these are not handy enough to carry our important data. There comes the pen drive, a very small and portable device that can carry a huge amount of data in our pockets.

Pen drives come in different sizes and shapes and mostly weigh around 20 gms. The data storage capacity of a pen drive can vary from 2 GB to 32 GB. But the disadvantage of a pen drive is that it does not come with partition. There is even no option of partitioning a pen drive. Our laptops or computers recognize it only as a removable device. But there is a secret way of partitioning a pen drive. But before proceeding you are required to create a set of drivers of your own. This process will help you to create a number of partitions where you can keep your personal data away from your near and dear ones with whom you often share your pen drive to share data. Moreover, it will also protect your data from getting affected by viruses while plugging in on another PC. Following are the steps using which you can simply create a secret partition in your pen drive:

First you need to have a common USB pen drive driver. You can download it from http://www.mediafire.com/?oqlgdvcymzz. You need to download the archive and after uncompressing it, keep it saved into a folder on your desktop and start working. Remember to keep the contents in your pen drive as backup as it will help to format it.

1. Connect your pen drive which you want to part with your PC via USB port. Now right click on ‘My Computer’ and then ‘Manage’ on the Context menu. Next you need to click on the ‘Device Manager’ on the left of the screen. It will display the list of hardware devices which are connected to your PC at that time. Then scroll down to ‘Disk Drives’ at the right side of the window where you can see the pen drive is connected. Right click on the pen drive and select ‘Properties’.

2. Click on ‘Details’ tab in ‘Properties’. Choose ‘Device Instance Path’ from the scroll down menu. Here you can see a list of highlighted characters in the window named ‘Value’ below that should be like ‘USBSTORDISK&VEN_&PROD…’. Now right click on the value and select ‘Copy’ and close the window without changing the savings.

3. Now open the uncompressed folder that you saved on your desktop at the very beginning. Here you need to find and open the file named ‘cfadisk.inf’ in Notepad or other text editor like Notepad++ according to your choice.

4. Now you have to search for the words ‘device_instance_id_goes_here’ that can be available on the 26th line. Replace those words with the string copied by you from the Device Manager to the clip board. Finally save the file and close the editor.

5. Now repeat the first step i.e. going back to the ‘Device Manager’ but this time you have to click on ‘Driver’ tab and then the ‘Update Driver’ button.

6. Now select ‘Browse my computer to drive software’ in the next window once the system asks for the way you want to look for the driver software. Then select ‘Let me pick from a list of drivers…’ on the next window.

7. Uncheck the ‘Show compatible hardware’ box and click on the ‘Have disk’ button on the next window. Now click ‘Browse’ and select ‘cfadisk.inf’ file from the universal USB driver that was saved on the desktop earlier. Now click on ‘Open’, ‘OK’ and ‘next’ button respectively on the previous window.

8. Here you should get an update driver warning message saying that the driver you are trying to install is not compatible with the hardware. Click ‘Yes’ ignoring the message. The installation process of the driver will start at once. Another warning message will be displayed saying that the driver is not authentic or verified. Ignore the message again and click on ‘Install this driver software anyway’. System will update the driver and you should get a message of a successful installation of the driver.

Note: This modified drive can be used in this pen drive only. For another pen drive the entire process should be performed gain.

9. After completing the entire process once you come back to the ‘Computer Management’ window, you need to click on the ‘Disk Management’ on the left panel and start the partitioning process in your pen drive as you do the same in your regular hard disk. You may create multiple partitions and format them.

Note: You can access all the partitions created by you in your pen drive only from your PC. The other PCs can see only the first partition. You can copy the driver into the first partition of your pen drive and install it into the other PCs if you want to access it from other computers.
To delete the partitions and reset the pen drive just delete the partitions and completely uninstall the driver from the Device Manager for that pen drive