Hi,

How do I "install" (for lack of a better name) a disk drive that is marked
as "removable" in WinXP? The concepts of removable versus fixed disk drives
is a self defeating concept anyway because every drive is removable once the
system box is opened up.

Just as an aside, the disk drive in question is a 16 GB Patriot SDHC module
in my Acer Aspire One netbook. I use it as drive D: I discovered a little
program called FlashFire that speeds up writes for the internal 8 GB Intel
SSD. Flashfire works by providing a write buffer and my benchmarks say that
its performance is indistinguishable from a spinning hard drive. But
FlashFire does not work on the external SDHC. I think that the WinXP will
not allow a write buffer for what it thinks is a "removable" drive. In
addition, there are a plethora of other benefits that would ensue from
"installing" the "removable" drive. I've added glue so that the SDHC module
remains in place.

Thanks in advance for helpful advice.

Any part of a computer, car, toaster, vacuum cleaner, etc. is removable.

In computer terms, a 'fixed' disk drive is one where the storage media
is designed to be attached to the computer at all times - like a hard
disk drive. A 'removable' disk drive is one where the storage media is
designed to be removable - like an optical disk drive or a USB drive.

An SDHC memory card is designed to be removable. You can leave it in the
card reader forever, if you like, but Windows will always enumerate it
as removable storage. (It's not a disk drive; there is no disk.)

Removable storage can be configured with or without write cacheing -
your choice. By default, removable storage has write cacheing disabled,
because people can and will remove the media at any time, even while the
device is being read or written. If you want to enable write cacheing,
just open up Device manager.
---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

Maud wrote:
> Hi,
>
> How do I "install" (for lack of a better name) a disk drive that is marked
> as "removable" in WinXP? The concepts of removable versus fixed disk drives
> is a self defeating concept anyway because every drive is removable once the
> system box is opened up.
>
> Just as an aside, the disk drive in question is a 16 GB Patriot SDHC module
> in my Acer Aspire One netbook. I use it as drive D: I discovered a little
> program called FlashFire that speeds up writes for the internal 8 GB Intel
> SSD. Flashfire works by providing a write buffer and my benchmarks say that
> its performance is indistinguishable from a spinning hard drive. But
> FlashFire does not work on the external SDHC. I think that the WinXP will
> not allow a write buffer for what it thinks is a "removable" drive. In
> addition, there are a plethora of other benefits that would ensue from
> "installing" the "removable" drive. I've added glue so that the SDHC module
> remains in place.
>
> Thanks in advance for helpful advice.
>
>

Windows 2000 used write-caching on removable drives, and basically it was a
bad idea, causing numerous cases of data being lost when the drive was
unplugged because the user wrongly thought that writing was finished.
XP-onward turns off write-caching by default.

To manage removable disks, run diskmgmt.msc

"Maud" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> How do I "install" (for lack of a better name) a disk drive that is marked
> as "removable" in WinXP? The concepts of removable versus fixed disk drives
> is a self defeating concept anyway because every drive is removable once the
> system box is opened up.
>
> Just as an aside, the disk drive in question is a 16 GB Patriot SDHC module
> in my Acer Aspire One netbook. I use it as drive D: I discovered a little
> program called FlashFire that speeds up writes for the internal 8 GB Intel
> SSD. Flashfire works by providing a write buffer and my benchmarks say that
> its performance is indistinguishable from a spinning hard drive. But
> FlashFire does not work on the external SDHC. I think that the WinXP will
> not allow a write buffer for what it thinks is a "removable" drive. In
> addition, there are a plethora of other benefits that would ensue from
> "installing" the "removable" drive. I've added glue so that the SDHC module
> remains in place.
>
> Thanks in advance for helpful advice.
>
>
> .
>

"Anteaus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote

> Windows 2000 used write-caching on removable drives, and basically it was
> a
> bad idea, causing numerous cases of data being lost when the drive was
> unplugged because the user wrongly thought that writing was finished.
> XP-onward turns off write-caching by default.
>
> To manage removable disks, run diskmgmt.msc
>
> "Maud" wrote:

Thanks for the advice. I think you meant "Disk Drive Propteries", "Write
caching and safe removal", "Optimize for performance". When I select that it
says the option will come into effect when I reboot. After reboot, it goes
back to the default which I don't want.

I think that to make this work, I need some advice on how to use Registry
Editor to enable write caching. Thanks.