USB flash drives cannot be partitioned in the Windows operating if the drive is identified as removable media. The only way to partition the USB flash drive is to flip the removable bit so that it is recognized as fixed media instead which can be partitioned like any normal hard drive.
A tool that can flip the bit and should work with most usb flash drives is Lexar’s USB format tool. It is a portable tool that has been designed for Lexar USB drives but it works with other brands as well. The main interface can not only be used to flip the removable bit but also to format the usb drive, set a volume label and a partition to be bootable. You only need to press the flip removable bit button if you want to prepare the flash drive for use with multiple partitions. The drive has to be removed and connected again to the computer system afterwards.
It should be noted that Lexar USB Format (via Shell City) will not partition the usb flash drive which has to be done with other tools. For that you can use the build in tools in the operating system. Read Joshua’s System Partitioning With Vista article to find out how to do that in Windows Vista. A more universal software is the gParted Live CD which can be booted from any computer system.
Another option to create multiple USB stick partitions has been discussed before at Ghacks. The process involves editing the Windows Registry and has the disadvantage that the add-on partitions are only visible on that computer system.
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter.Related Articles:
USB Flash Drives GuardianUSB Flash Drives: USB Vaccine
Transfer Windows Installation DVDs To Flash Drives
Spotlight-V100 and Trashes Folders On USB Flash Drives
USB Flash Drives Cleaner
Hoi Martin i am keep on having a “You have an invalid session set” answer, do you maybay have a outher adres to download the Lexar USB Format prg.
from? And on schell city i can not find the program.
Here is a mirror: http://uploading.com/files/9HZOTOQ6/lexar_usb_format.zip.html
It doesn’t work for my RiData USB stick (4GB).
Hoi Martin, First off all thanks your your fast answer. And i am sorry to report to you this but i trayed everything with the mirror, your supplied, but this links spring in a loop. Hopefully you have a outher link.
here: http://www.filedropper.com/lexarusbformat
Thanks a mill. Martin. This one works fine. So thank you ferry much here from The Netherlands, i am one verry happy Dutchmen. Speaking of dutchmen Martin i have a question for you because of your surname Brinkmann this is a real Dutch sirname, so are you a Dutchman?
will this work for portable hard drives, sich as transcend or WD and so on
It doesn’t work with my 4th Generation iPod… :((((
Works with my OCZ Rally2 2GB drive but not with my more recent SanDisk Cruzer Micro Skin.
It also reads the capacity wrongly on the SanDisk
this is goo\d
hello martin.
sorry my bad english.
i have the corsair voyager gtr 128gb.
i would like to create two partitions:
1) the one of 28GB fat32, for normal pc/dvd standalone player usage (i.e. photos, avi, …).
2) the second partition of 100GB sould be formatted by my DVB-T decoder (another file system estabishled by the broadcasters, neither fat32 nor ntfs, not playable on pc!!).
can you explain how I can get 2 partitions on your pen drive (throught vista32) with two different file system, one of witch will be created by my decoder?
this seems to be very hard for me.
the steps you have described about the lexar utility should been followed the first time only (when the 2 partition being created) or every time i put the pen drive in to pc?
thanks a lot in advance.
best regards
tell me about my flash usb drive .
its speed very slow why
can you send to me the above Bootit V1.07
Microsoft should provide a hotfix to this issue. A simple task like this doesn’t need to be that difficult, look at Linux, it natively supports multiple USB flash drive partitions. What’s the “philosophy” behind Microsoft’s reluctance to recognize any additional partitions on a USB flash drive?
I used the free home edition of:
EASEUS Partition Master 8.0.1 Home Edition
and I have partitioned my external portable 500gb usb into three parts – a boot drive, a data drive and a temp drive – just fine
Hi all
I have been looking long+hard for a solution to this.
It appears as if it isnt possible (due to the way the hardware is made + operating system restrictions)
but there is a way thats almost like partitioning the usb drive
its software called Rohos Mini Drive.(free+tiny 2.65 Mb application)
It will create a “partition” on any removable media that can also be locked with a password.
the only drawback is that u have to run the rohos.exe from ur flashdisk before u will c the partition.but once thats done (+ur password is entered) it shows up just like another drive on any pc.
SO ITS NOT PERFECT…BUT IT IS RATHER CLOSE TO WHAT WE WANT..I CAN LIVE WITH IT…CONSIDERING THERES NO REAL OTHER WAY TO DO IT…
hello there. im jhef, 4th year college student. my group mates and i are proposing this concept. we propose to partition a flash drive, the user could select what partition to be used. if he activated only one partition the rest partition will be turned off. if he wish to partition all, all should be turn on.if he did not turn it off and plug out his FD, and plug in to another pc the partition still be turn on. our main target is windows (7, XP). is this possible?
this don’t work. …
aka
FAIL
I’m gonna try to partition it in a live Linux CD. Microsoft is fucking shit!!!!!!!
Andrew says:
May 19, 2010 at 1:18 am
It was a very good trick indeed, but now oldish and doesn’t work with windows 7. For that you have to do something like in here: [redacted]
^ this post should be removed or edited because it’s a malware redirect link.
Thanks, I have removed the comment
Try this tutorial. http://agnipulse.com/2011/11/partition-usb-flash-drive/
It uses bootice to partition and access the various partitions.