DIY hard drive pocket. We make an external USB drive from a computer and laptop HDD

Very often, to “treat” the computer, to reinstall operating system and in many other cases, the user needs to use a boot disk. It would seem that there is nothing simpler - you can buy such a disc or borrow it from friends (in general, this is not a problem). But there are situations when the optical drive does not work, there is no bootable USB flash drive at hand, or you need to boot a netbook. The problem is fixable if you have external hard disk. But you need to take care of making it bootable in advance, without waiting for the moment when you need it.

Some experts, in order to do hard drive boot, it is recommended to use a special software. But we will take a simpler route and use standard tools of the operating system itself. We will consider all operations using Windows 8.1 as an example. However, keep in mind that the creation process boot disk based on external hard drive via Windows OS more than earlier versions, in principle, similar (the differences are not too global). So, everything in order.

Preparation external hard disk

Before you start working with your hard drive, you need to transfer all important information from of this device to another medium. After this, it is recommended to divide the used hard drive into 2 partitions. We will use one for our personal needs, and in the second we will create a boot disk.

1. First, connect external media to the computer and go to the control panel section - “Computer Management”.

Attention! Remember - all data recorded on the external hard drive will be deleted as a result of your actions!

If you are working with Windows 8.1, then right-click the manipulator and select Start/Disk Management.

Regarding previous versions systems, then you should use the control panel in them: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Storage Devices / Disk Management.

2. Now from the list presented you need to select your external hard drive from which you plan to make a boot one. Be careful when choosing a device, because all data on it will be deleted!

In our case, the external disk is disk 1, already divided into 2 partitions (volumes).

3. Delete the partitions on the disk. To do this, right-click on each partition and select “Delete volume” in the menu that opens.

Note: If your external drive only has one partition, then you just need to format that drive.

4. Create 2 partitions on the external drive - one for the boot disk, the second for various data for your own use. For this, on free space, which is displayed by the disk, right-click and select “Create simple volume”.

5. The Volume Creation Wizard will open in front of you, in which you need to specify the size of the new volume. For us, a volume of 4404 megabytes (4.18 GB) is suitable. Click “Next”.

We designate the disk with a letter:

We need to format the new partition. Select file FAT system 32, click “Next” and then “Finish”.

6. Now we need to activate the created section (this prerequisite and if it is not executed, the computer will not be able to boot from this partition). For this, in context menu partition, select the command “Make partition active” and confirm by selecting the word “Yes”.

Our external drive will look like this:

7. Format in the same sequence additional section, choosing the NFTS file system for it. Please note that it should not be made active.

How to make an external drive bootable - the final stage

Creating a system distribution on an external hard drive after preparing the latter does not look so difficult.

Create a distribution from a bootable DVD:

To do this, open the contents of the installation DVD in Explorer and copy all the files to the activated partition created on external media.

Create a distribution from an ISO image:

What is an image ISO disk? It's nothing more than special archive. And if this is an archive, this means that it can always be opened. Programs such as - Daemon Tools or Total Commander. If Windows 8 (8.1) is installed on your PC, then you can even open the archive using Explorer.

You need to copy all unzipped files to an external hard drive (to its active partition).

That's probably all. You now know how to make an external hard drive bootable. In order for the computer to boot from this disk, you just need to enter the BIOS and set the boot priority for the USB HDD.

Today's price USB flash drives still quite high. And a drive with a capacity of 128 gigabytes will cost the user approximately 5,000 rubles. In comparison, say) will cost in the range of 1500 - 2500 rubles! Naturally, the preferred purchase would be to purchase an external hard drive, or to complete it yourself...

The benefits of self-configuring the device are obvious. This is not only an individual selection of external and technical characteristics, but also the opportunity to save money by using your existing hard drive.

So in the situation described below, we managed to get by with “little loss.” There is a 320 gigabyte hard drive, which was removed from the laptop due to replacement with a larger device. Let's buy a “box for hard drives"(case, pocket, etc.), which costs very little, from two hundred rubles and more. Next comes the assembly process, which takes 5 to 10 minutes.

If you are unsure of the success of completing the equipment yourself, then you should contact specialists. For example, inquire about the possibility of assembly at the place of purchase, or trust.

Steps to assemble an external hard drive:

Connecting the drive to the computer:

We connect the resulting drive to the computer using the USB cable supplied with the box. We insert one end (micro-USB) into the corresponding connector on the box panel, and one (or two) into the free USB ports your PC;

If the hard drive used in the drive was previously installed in a laptop, as in our case, then the installation will not require any additional actions. Operating systems Windows family older than XP version – controllers of this type are automatically recognized.
If you equipped the drive with a new hard drive, then at a minimum you will need to format it (often, no additional actions are required, since the factory hard drive is ready for use after connection).

Most models of boxes for external hard drives are equipped with an indication marked as “LED” (it can display the connection - constant light, or intermittent - reading and writing information).
In addition, the box panel may have additional functionality. In our case, this is the “Backup” button, designed to launch the specified directories or files (with the software installed).

As if installing an OS is not something complicated, and my opinion is that it is enough to be friends with the computer and have two more hands in addition to your head - one right and the other left. To install the OS on your computer, you need or.

But what to do if you have neither one nor the other, the optical drive does not work, or you have a netbook? After thinking a little, I remembered that I have external usb-a pocket for HDD and a free old HDD 2.5' are also there. In general, if you have a pocket hard drive, you can make it bootable.

There are utilities for this purpose that can be used to do this, but I decided to use standard means Windows.

There are a lot of descriptions and videos on the Internet, but, unfortunately, there is one problematic point that the authors for some reason omit. Well, okay, I'll start in order.

Preparing an external HDD

Before working with the disk, be sure to transfer and save necessary information from this disk to another medium.

I will carry out all settings as standard using Windows 8.1. There may be some differences from Windows previous releases, but if there are, they are not significant.

First of all, I want to note that to make the external HDD bootable, much more convenient. I divided the disk into two partitions, one contains the Windows distribution, the other partition is for my needs.

1. We connect the USB pocket and go to Disk management.

Attention! All data on the disk will be destroyed!

If you have Windows 8 installed on your PC,1 right-click: Start/Disk Management;

If Windows is earlier versions, open the Computer Management console: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / expand Storage Devices / left click Disk Management.

See screenshot:

2. Choose external HDD drive. Be extremely careful; if you select another disk by mistake, all information will be destroyed.

In my case, this is Disk 1. As you can see in the screenshot, the disk is divided into two volumes (partitions):

3. Delete disk partitions:

4. Create new disk partitions. One for the distribution, the second will remain for your needs:

Right-click on a free disk field and select the command in the context menu Create a simple volume:

5. In the Create Wizard window that appears simple volume, press the button Next:

Specify the volume size as 4404 megabytes and click Next. Please note that the size is indicated in megabytes. And since 1 gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes, then 1024 × 4.3 = 4403.2 megabytes we get for the distribution section (mine weighs 4.18 GB, for example);

In this dialog, you need to format new section(FAT 32) , press Next then Ready:

6. After this, you need to make the created partition active (don't forget because the computer will boot from this partition), for this:

Right click the mouse and select the command in the context menu Make the section active.

We respond to the confirmation request YES.

The external HDD looks like this:

7. We format the second partition on the disk in the same order, preferably in NTFS, but do not make it active.

Copying Windows to the active partition of an external HDD

Copy Windows distribution booting an external HDD is quite simple and easy.

From boot DVD:

Open in Explorer installation DVD, select all folders and files and copy them to the active partition of the external HDD;

From ISO image A:

By and large, an ISO image is a kind of archive. So you can open it using any archiver. You can also open the ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools. Well, if you have Windows 8 or 8.1 installed on your PC, then open it with Explorer. Select all folders and files and copy them to the active partition of the external HDD;

That's it, your external HDD can act as bootable media. Just reboot and set USB HDD as boot priority in BIOS (depending on BIOS type).

When you turn on the laptop, press F2, to ;
Go to the tab Boot;
IN Boot Priority order install USB HDD;
Click F10 and then OK.

If it doesn’t work, then look at the article.

Save the changes and proceed.

As we can see from the text, preparing an external HDD for Windows installations, is quite simple. And my description will not be complete if I do not talk about one problem that for some reason is rarely written about on the Internet.

Making the hard drive partition active

When I divided the hard drive into two volumes, for some reason unknown to me, not a single partition of the disk could be made active. This function was not available in the context menu.

The active partition is the partition from which the computer boots.

There are two ways to make a section active:

Using the Computer Management console. We have already considered this method, but, unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the Make Partition Active command may not be available. The solution to this problem is also not difficult. Remember how to prepare bootable USB flash drive from the Command Line.
Using the Command Line, through the utility diskpart. The second method is a little more complicated, but more effective. You just need to do all the operations carefully and slowly.

Setting the active partition using the command line

1. Connect an external USB HDD;

2. Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/ Command line . Right-click and select Run as administrator.

3. In the window that opens, write the command diskpart and press the button Enter. An invitation line to work with the utility will appear – DISKPART>;

4. Enter the command list disk and press the button Enter. You will see all the disks installed on your computer;

5. We select the disk with which we will work. To do this, enter the command select disk 0, where “0” is the disk number in the list, i.e. for my external drive there will be a team select disk 1. Click the button Enter, the message Disk 1 selected will appear;

6. Next, you need to find all partitions on the selected disk. Enter the command list partition and press the button Enter.

7. We select the section we will work with. Enter the command select partition 1, where 1 is the section number in the list, i.e. for the section that we make active. Click Enter, a message will appear Section 1 selected.

8. Mark the selected partition as active, to do this, enter the command active. Click the button Enter, a message will appear DiskPart: Partition marked as active.

That's all. I wish you good luck.

Also on the site:

How to make an external USB HDD (hard drive) bootable using standard Windows tools? updated: February 6, 2018 by: admin

Greetings, dear friends! Advanced users who are on a “short leg” with computer equipment, love to experiment. Sometimes from the outside it may seem that they are suffering from outright nonsense - for example, they assemble a computer in a homemade case in the form of a pentagram and hang it on the wall, or try to overclock something that cannot be overclocked by immersing an ancient slow piece of hardware in a bath with liquid nitrogen.

Today I will tell you where all this can begin. So, the topic of the publication is how to turn a hard drive into an external drive and whether you need it.

Why is this necessary?

There are several reasons why you may need to make a portable hard drive yourself:

Desire to save money: often buying a working stationary hard drive complete with a pocket is cheaper than an external HDD;
There is an ownerless hard drive lying around the farm that I want to find a useful use for;
You need to copy a large amount of data from one computer to another, but there is no way to do this using local network or the Internet;
A 3.5” hard drive from a desktop computer must be connected to a laptop, which in most cases is physically impossible - the thickness is not suitable;
You need to take a hard drive with important data on a business trip or vacation.

Whatever the reason, the main thing is that you can make a “fat” USB drive quickly: if you have experience, the procedure will take no more than 15 minutes, including setup.

Assembling the device

Before you “shamanize” a new portable hard drive from an old hard drive, you will need the following components:

The hard drive itself;
Screwdriver (usually Phillips);
Boxing;
Suitable USB cable.

Boxing (as well as “pocket” or “controller”) is a special device adapted for our task. There are two sizes - 2.5 or 3.5 inches, under existing types Winchesters. Please note that when using some models, you need to unscrew 4 screws from the back wall of the hard drive, otherwise it will not fit into the slot.

As you know, modern hard drives have 2 connectors - power and data interface (and if you don’t know, then read my publication about connectors on hard drives for computer). As a rule, pockets are designed to SATA drives different generations. I haven’t come across IDE devices yet (I doubt that they still exist in principle).

When installing a hard drive, its interfaces are connected to the corresponding slots on the pocket, which are enclosed in single block. Connects to the same block USB cable, transmitting power and data from the computer.

Most models of boxes do not need to be disassembled: just open the lid and place the hard drive there. You may need to secure the hard drive in your pocket with screws. In any case, when installing the hard drive, you should hear a characteristic click, which certifies that everything is connected correctly.

Connection and setup

Don’t rush to use the resulting gadget as quickly as possible: it needs to be configured. After connecting the controller to your computer, do the following:

Launch Disk Management (type Win+R and copy diskmgmt.msc to the line that opens;
Find your now external hard drive in the list of devices, right-click on it and select create a new volume;
When starting the corresponding Wizard, select the appropriate volume parameters - drive letter, number logical partitions, their sizes and so on.
Complete the procedure by clicking the “Finish” button.

But before that, you still need to set the following parameters for the new drive;

File system– NTFS;
The volume label is the name you specify;
Cluster size is default;
Formatting is fast.

After such manipulations, all data from the disk will be deleted. If you have it stored there important information, then you know what to do.

Gembird EE2-U3S-2 hdd 2.5 usb 3.0 ;
AgeStar 3UB3O8 HDD 3.5 usb 3.0 .

Windows users With a standard set of knowledge about the capabilities of the operating system, you are unlikely to encounter the need to divide the memory of a USB drive into two halves. However, such an operation may be necessary in the case of recording certain Windows versions to a flash card with the possibility of subsequent installation or reinstallation of the system.

The USB drive itself has almost completely replaced CDs due to the following reasons:

In general, splitting a flash drive into two parts will be needed for many purposes. The end result of such an operation is that the flash card is recognized by the computer as one of the hard drives. Fortunately, you don’t need any special knowledge to do this: just learn about the following methods.

How to turn a flash drive into a hard drive?

On at the moment The following options for dividing a flash drive into two parts are known:

usage special programs or so-called utilities. You should look for them on the website of the brand whose authorship belongs to specific model USB drive. Downloading from third-party resources can be not only unsafe, but also pointless;
replacing drivers. In this case, the digital signature is checked initially installed driver flash drives. As a result, the user must save the driver without this signature;
installing the Hitachi Microdrive driver. Drivers for cards from this manufacturer will help you split drives of almost any other brand into two parts.

All this is quite simple and, moreover, free ways, which are worth considering in more detail.

Using Utilities

Using such a program, you can not only turn the drive into a hard drive, but also achieve reverse effect. The most famous utility of this kind is Lexar Bootit.

With its help, it is possible to store the most common OS - Windows, regardless of the latest version.

How to install Lexar Bootit utility?

Download the archive with the program from the official website of the brand. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the mentioned site contains versions for both MacBooks and personal computers.
Launch the program. Required condition– run as administrator.
Next, the user will be presented with a selection of portable devices. Accordingly, you should choose the flash drive that you plan to share.
Click on the “Flip Removable Bit” button.
Confirm completed actions.
Remove the flash drive using safe removal, and then connect again. In the “Volumes” tab, “Basic” should be indicated opposite the “Type” characteristic.

In case of problems with the operation of the utility, it is recommended to restart Windows. As a rule, in this case, the “transformation” of the card into a disk occurs within a few minutes.

Replacing drivers

This operation is considered more complex, but in case of inaccuracies with the previous method, it can become a worthy replacement.

How to install a third-party driver instead of the standard version of the flash drive itself?

Find the required flash drive in the “My Computer” tab.
Right-click to open the menu and select the “Properties” line.
In the fourth tab “Drivers”, select the “Update Driver” button.
In the next window, select the location of the utility.
Next, select the pre-downloaded driver and confirm with the “Next” button.
After this, a warning window will appear in front of the user. The system will notify you that the driver is missing digital signature. Among the two options offered, you should select “Install this driver software anyway”.

This completes the installation process. Be sure to restart the computer itself and reconnect the flash card.

Installing the Hitachi Microdrive driver

In this case we are talking about the so-called filter driver. This method is considered one of the most reliable and, importantly, safe.

How to install Hitachi Motodrive filter driver?

Determine the type of your operating system - 32-bit or 64-bit. To do this, you need to open the “Control Panel”, and then the “System” tab. The bit capacity of your computer will be indicated there.
Download the Hitachi Microdrive driver depending on the information received. Accordingly, downloading should be done from the official website of the mentioned brand.
On the flash drive icon in “My Computer”, go to the “Properties” menu using the right mouse button.
Open the “Equipment” tab, click on the “Properties” button.
In the most last tab“Details”, click on the button and select “Device Instance Path” from the list. Next, copy the code to the clipboard.
Next, open the downloaded driver. You can use any type of text editor to open it.

Important! For 64 bit system open the file "cfadisk".
The user is presented with two lines, each of which contains the word “Disk”. The data after this word should be replaced with the code you just copied.
After the manipulations have been performed, the file must be saved.
Go to the “Drivers” tab, select the “Update Driver” button, then follow the instructions described in the “Replacing Drivers” section.