Do you have CDFS partition on your USB flash drive? U3 drive has CDFS partition and easy to customize the CDFS partion with your own iso image. Here, some explaination is given about how to create CDFS partition on normal USB flash dirve.

If you have CDFS partition on your usb flash drive then you can see two drives ( one is CD rom, another is USB flash drive ) as shown below.

There are a few benefit to have CDFS partition on USB flash drive.

• Autorun function : Run a application as usb flash drive is inserted without clicking ( not on vista)
• Install OS : Boot from CDFS partiton on USB flash drive and insatll OS just like OS CD
• Making Non writable partition ( read only)

USB Flash drives are mainly consist of USB controller chip and flash memory. In order to creat CD partition, you have focus on controller chip.

There are a few USB flash drive controller IC vendors …. USBEST, SMI, OTI, CHIPBANK,PHISON, Skymedi and a few more.

However, the explaination on this post is all about USB flash drives which use SMI and USBEST chip. If your USB flash drive use other control chip then, you can not find the proper information here.

1. First of all, you have to find out the vendor of usb controller IC in you USB flash drive.

If you know the vendor of the controller chip then skip this section. Otherwise visit here and download USBdeveiceview and run.

Now, you know the number of Vendor ID….

• Vendor ID = 1307  => USBEST chip ( USBest vendor ID can be different than “1307 ” )
• Vendor ID = 090c  => SMI Chip ( SMI vendor ID can be different than “090c ” )

If your controller chip is different than USBEST or SMI then, you can not find usefull information here.  sorry~ ㅠㅠ

In fact, other vendor chips also can make CD partition but a little tricky so, I do not post about it.

2. If your USB drive has SMI controller ( VendorID = 090c ) inside, you have use “SMI UFD utility”.  Insert your flash drive and  backup all data and take procedure as follows.

• DownLoad SMI UFD utility ( Download )
• Run SMI UFD utility
• Refer to the image below

 Some product lists are given which are working with the above tool.

• ADATA                                  C702                    2GB              SMI TOOL
  ADATA                                  C702                    4GB              SMI TOOL
  ADATA                                  C702                    8GB              SMI TOOL
• ADATA                                  PD7                      4GB              SMI TOOL
  ADATA                                  PD7                      8GB              SMI TOOL
• Buffalo                                   RUF2-E1G-K-AP 1GB             SMI TOOL
  Buffalo                                   RUF2-E2G-K-AP 2GB             SMI TOOL
  Buffalo                                   RUF2-E4G-K-AP 4GB             SMI TOOL
  Buffalo                                   RUF2-E8G-K-AP 8GB             SMI TOOL
• Corsair                                  Survivor                 8GB              SMI TOOL
  Corsair                                  Voyager                2GB              SMI TOOL
  Corsair                                  Voyager                4GB              SMI TOOL
  GlodenMars                          GU-P08                4GB               SMI TOOL

3. If your USB drive has USBEST controller ( VendorID = 1307 ) inside, you have use “UCDexec.exe”.  Insert your flash drive and  back up all data and take procedure as follows.

• DownLoad UCDexec.exe ( DownLoad )
• Run UCDexec.exe
• Refer to the image below

4. Re-insert USB flash drive and see if it works!

For your reference, CD partition build time defends on the iso file size. In my case, it tooks about  5 minits for windows XP CD image burning ( 620MB). And I could install windows xp to my labtop PC which has no ODD with easy.  With Windows XP+sp2 pack image, it took about 18 minuts to install XP.

If you want to remove CD partition, run each SMI UFD utility or UCDexec.exe . Then, do not select iso file path and click “make” or “Burn”

Warnning!! making CD partition is a little dangerous job. you lose all data or make USB flash drive permently un-useable. Be carefull!!

Have you ever used Mind Mapping application?

It helps to organize and vizualize your idea.  I would like to intorduce very a Mind Mapping software…….. namely “ConceptLeader“  ( www.conceptleader.com). This is one of the best free mind mapping software I have ever used. This portable version is officically permitted to redistribute on this blog from Mahawiz Corp.

* Overview enables you to brainstorm ideas Easy-to-use WYSWYG interface ( easy to use ) Export your Concept Leader as image files (.bmp; .gif; .jpg; .png ) Export maps to Microsoft® Word, excel, powerpoint Create a presentation file (in slide show format) Link to any multimedia files such as audio or video clips, web-site, files Insert images, clip-board and schedule… *Requirement *License shareware ( but free to use  with small function limitation ) This portable version is portablized in www.usboffice.kr ( Author allowed me to redistribute it ) *DownLoad ConceptLeader 2007 Portable (You just download and extract on your flash drive and run it on any PC.   Enjoy~~)

*Gallery

Here,  a few sample mindmaps from ConceptLeadr below.

< Use of USB flash drives>

*DownLoad : ConceptLeader 2007 Portable

 

Read the rest of this entry »

Have your ever had any situtation you have to work with iso files outside? I guess mainly people make iso, burn iso, mount virtual CD drive with iso file….

There are a few usefull freeware tools for it as shown below;

• folder2ISO - you can create an ISO file from a folder you choose.
• isoburner - you can burn a CD with an ISO file.
• VcdControlTool - you can mount a virtual CD drive from an ISO file.

< folder2ISO >

< ISOBurner >

<VCDcontrolTool>

They are all freeware but not all portable ( leave a few registry or need to install driver ) but you can use it as  portable applications. You can run each of them from USB flash drive.

For better looking, easy carring and uses,  a launcher was made and compressed them all into a single file using  WinRar SFX . Namely “ISOtools.exe“.

The roles of ISOtools.exe are ….

• Extract all files in %Temp% folder.
• Install the driver for Virtual CD drive mounting ( No need to install driver manually,  Admin account needed).
• Cerate tray menu.
• When exited, it deletes registry and uninstalls previously installed driver.
• Delete all extracted files in %Temp% folder ( so nothing left in the host PC ).

Then now,  let’s have a look at the tray menu which you can see when you run isotools.exe.

* DownLoad isotools.exe

Hi there?

I would like to introduce this blog. It is all about USB flash drives and usefull portable softwares.

All posts here are from www.usboffice.kr which is the biggest on-line forum about USB flash drive in South Korea. It introduces USB flash drives, makes softwares portable, developes usefull softwares and describes how to use USB flash drive.

I hope you can find this blog is handy and enjoyable!!

Thanks~

ssanai