Partitioning USB thumb drive

[Nathan]

Hi there,

I'm trying to partition a 128MB USB thumb drive. I'd like to have a
small (~20MB) partition to store things like SSH keys, my X.509
certificate, etc. Ideally, it would be nice to make this parition
read-only to prevent accidential changes (the thumb drive doesn't have a
switch or anything). The rest of the drive should just be a normal
partition for storing every-day files on.

I was able change the partition table so that the drive has a 20MB FAT16
partition and a 100MB FAT16 partition, however Windows XP only assigns a
drive letter to the first (20MB) partition. When I try to assign a
drive letter to the second partition in Disk Management, I get the error
"The operation did not complete because the partition or volume is not
enabled".

How can I convince XP to recognize both partitions?


Thanks,

Nathan

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

One cannot partition an USB thumb drive as though
it were a regular hard drive.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Hi there,
|
| I'm trying to partition a 128MB USB thumb drive. I'd like to have a
| small (~20MB) partition to store things like SSH keys, my X.509
| certificate, etc. Ideally, it would be nice to make this parition
| read-only to prevent accidential changes (the thumb drive doesn't have a
| switch or anything). The rest of the drive should just be a normal
| partition for storing every-day files on.
|
| I was able change the partition table so that the drive has a 20MB FAT16
| partition and a 100MB FAT16 partition, however Windows XP only assigns a
| drive letter to the first (20MB) partition. When I try to assign a
| drive letter to the second partition in Disk Management, I get the error
| "The operation did not complete because the partition or volume is not
| enabled".
|
| How can I convince XP to recognize both partitions?
|
|
| Thanks,
|
| Nathan

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Depending of the USB flash drive, several models can be set up with a secure
section, with a password access, for storing sensitive data.

The ones I know of:

Sandisk Cruser Mini
Laxar JumpDrive Secure