Formatting an Ironkey Workspace Thumbdrive

[renbail]

I recently obtain an Ironkey Workspace 300w thumb-drive, intended for Windows-To-Go. Each user has been given one of these at my company and thanks to the flaw nature of planning, not a lot of users are in need of Windows-To-Go.

Is there a way to reformat the drive to allow it to be use as a traditional storage device and not as a Windows-To-GO Workspace so we can put these into use?

 

[Wastedfun]

Try HP's usb drive formater. works wonders for me.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool.shtml

 

[renbail]

Try HP's usb drive formater. works wonders for me.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool.shtml

Thanks, but correct me if I'm wrong. I would need to save and run this tool from the device I want to format?

If that is the case, I won't be able to do it. The problem is that the Thumbdrive doesn't come attach with it's down drivers, it's not designed to be used as a storage thumbdrive. It has been setup to be a workspace to have Windows-To-Go installed. I'm not sure if I can make it as a boot drive for an OS.

A physical driver for the thumbdrive doesn't appear when plugged into the computer, but does appear when wanted to install a boot image. So I'm not even able to see what file contents it already comes installed. All the drives comes package this way. You can't save any other misc file it in. So I'm asking if there is a way to remove or install some generic thumbdrive driver for the thing to be used as a portable storage device.

 

[Wastedfun]

That tool can run from your desktop and if it sees it plugged in can format it for you. If it doesnt see it and no driver installs, then I am not sure.

 

[renbail]

That tool can run from your desktop and if it sees it plugged in can format it for you. If it doesnt see it and no driver installs, then I am not sure.

Thanks for that information. Can confirm it can run from the desktop and it does see my other thumbdrives. But doesn't see the Iron Key.

Here is the website of the thumbdrive: http://www.ironkey.com/en-US/windows-to-go-drives/ironkey-workspace-w300.html

I just don't see why we would buy these when we don't need Windows-To-Go and can't use them in the traditional way of storage.

 

[Wastedfun]

When your device does not mount, a problem might exist with that computer's "mounted device list" in the Windows registry. You can modify the registry to have Windows re-populate the "mounted devices" list (assuming the entry for the IronKey device is corrupted). However, use extreme caution when modifying the registry to avoid causing other problems.



Click the Start button on your Windows taskbar, and then select "Run".
Type in "regedit", and click "OK".
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices to view the list of devices (at the bottom). Other than your local fixed drives (e.g., C:, D: ), you can delete all of the "\DosDevices\:" items, which will re-populate the next time they are mounted.


NOTE: To be thorough, you can delete the corresponding entries above the list. You can identify the associated entry by matching the Data values (see attached; the red boxes contain the matched entries).



To display the list of mounted devices in the registry, enter the following code in a text file, name it GetMountedDevices.bat, and run it from a command line (see attached).


:: GET_MOUNTED_DEVICES
@echo off
for /f "tokens=1 delims=:" %%j in ('reg query hklm\system\mounteddevices ^| findstr \DosDevices\') do echo %%j

 

[renbail]

When your device does not mount, a problem might exist with that computer's "mounted device list" in the Windows registry. You can modify the registry to have Windows re-populate the "mounted devices" list (assuming the entry for the IronKey device is corrupted). However, use extreme caution when modifying the registry to avoid causing other problems.



Click the Start button on your Windows taskbar, and then select "Run".
Type in "regedit", and click "OK".
Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices to view the list of devices (at the bottom). Other than your local fixed drives (e.g., C:, D: ), you can delete all of the "\DosDevices\:" items, which will re-populate the next time they are mounted.


NOTE: To be thorough, you can delete the corresponding entries above the list. You can identify the associated entry by matching the Data values (see attached; the red boxes contain the matched entries).



To display the list of mounted devices in the registry, enter the following code in a text file, name it GetMountedDevices.bat, and run it from a command line (see attached).


:: GET_MOUNTED_DEVICES
@echo off
for /f "tokens=1 delims=:" %%j in ('reg query hklm\system\mounteddevices ^| findstr \DosDevices\') do echo %%j

This works well with other bad devices here, but all these type of Ironkeys are like this. And this happens in all computers. Which give me the idea that it can't be used as a thumbdrive but only as a boot drive.

 

[popatim]

Yes, this is a "boot only" drive for security purposes of accessing your work from.. well, anywhere you can boot this drive.