Make usb pen/flash drive appear as a dvd to Win 7

[1Gav]

Hello, I'd like to make a usb flash drive appear as a DVD drive so that I can use it to create Win 7 recovery 'disk'.

Thanks in advance.

Gavin

 

[nikorr]

OK, install or repair from the USB pen drive.

U need this tool – use USB2 port only! Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool

How to @ http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/12/-the-usb-flash-drive.ars

 

[1Gav]

Thanks Niko, but perhaps I didn't frame my question correctly or clearly enough.

I'd like my USB flash drive to simulate a DVD drive. Ie when it's connected Win 7 should recognise it as a DVD drive. This is particularly for the purposes of creating a Emergency Repair Disk. - I am asked to create a repair disk when wanting to restore the computer from an Image file (one previously created from within Win7).

Gavin

 

[peekayy00]

youll need diskpart.. it comes in windows....
run CMD
type DISKPART.exe
And follow these
select disk # (find the drive of your usb)
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs
assign
exit

Then, drag everything over from your disk image over to the Disk drive, this makes the usb drive bootable too, so you can run a linux disk or something from it too

 

[Hawkeye22]

Making a usb drive bootable is not the same thing as making it appear as a dvd drive. As far as I know, you can't make it appear as a dvd drive, but if your motherboard supports booting from usb, then making a bootable usb drive will work just as well.

 

[1Gav]

Making a usb drive bootable is not the same thing as making it appear as a dvd drive. As far as I know, you can't make it appear as a dvd drive, but if your motherboard supports booting from usb, then making a bootable usb drive will work just as well.

Thanks Hawkeye, but I don't want to boot from a USB stick. I just wanted to make it 'look like' a DVD drive to the os (Win7 in this case). And as you've said, you don't think it's possible to make a memory stick look like a DVD drive, which is a shame as it will mean having to get hold of an external drive just so I can restore the HDD image to my Netbook (the os needs the drive to create a recovery DVD).

Gavin

 

[GryphonB]

What you want is possible this way:
I used dd.exe (from chrysocome.net) to find & copy the hidden recovery partition:
CMD> dd --list <shows the device & partition information>
CMD> dd bs=1M if=<partition name> of=Recovery.img

I then mounted the partition image as a drive using OSFMount from OSForensics, but there are plenty of other tools.
The stick drive can be prepared using DiskPart(plenty of pages on how) & the image contents copied over. This creates a full, bootable recovery from the stick drive. But you do need a 16GB drive.

 

[GryphonB]

Quick Update:
Using DiskPart, http://arstechnica.com/business/2009/12/the-usb-flash-drive/2/ says the stick should be formatted as fat32, otherwise you need to use bootsect.exe, which can be hard to find without Win7 Install disk.

 

[1Gav]

Thanks GryphonB, you have answered my question by thinking outside the box. This method clearly gets around the need to have the memory stick 'look like' a DVD drive.