USB detected as a HDD and not as a removable device

The problem with the solution of using it the way Rohit says is that it cannot be used with the Windows 7 USB DVD Download tool - it isn't recognized as removable and therefore cannot be used this way.  I am a tech that carries a bootable flash drive around because many new computers do not come with an optical drive whatsoever and often I need to reinstall the OS.  Because of the games SanDisk has played, I cannot use this drive for that purpose.

I find it interesting that Microsoft's Windows 8 compliance rules forced SanDisk to do this action.  They basically knee-capped techs that need to have USB drives to accomplish our duties.  How can you actually accomplish reinstalling an OS onto a netbook running Windows 8 when you do not have an optical drive to install it from?  USB boot?  Nope, not if you are using SanDisk products.

You can still connect and disconnect the flash drives from the USB port without having to power off the computer. You can also still use the 'Safely Remove Hardware' feature when disconnecting.

Not entirely true, with Windows 7, if you go to the properties of your sandisk drive you will see that the option by default is not set to cache and the use of the "Safely Remove Hardware" is not needed.  But if you turn it on the usb drive functions alot faster.

Hi !

For more information, the things I tried to do :

• Reformat the key in NTFS and FAT32.
• Try to plug the key in another Windows 8 computer and Windows 7 : same thing.
• Try another usb key : it's detected as a removable device not as a disk.

USB key is a new one. Everything is ok on it, I tried to create folders, rename, move, delete : all good !

I found lot of tips to create a disk from a removable disk but not to change a fix disk as a removable.

It's really strange. This one is useless to create a boot key. When I try to create a boot key, it.

Thanks for your help.

Hi I'm a tech for a  IT companie, whats rely become a problem is we are meant to use 32gb scan dusk usb's for making the recovery media for HP, Toshiba and a hole host of other laptops. However we cant now as the recovery media creation tools will not see a drive that's not a USB removable device...... that's just dandy...  is there a Tool to force the 32gb scan dusk usb's to show up as a removable device on windows 8?

Hello,

Thanks for you answer. I tried on different computers and it's the same issue.

I have my answer from SanDisk but don't understand what they have done and why they do that :

Dear Francois,

Thanks for emailing SanDisk Technical Support. It is our goal to make sure you have all the resources you need to get the most from your product.

We have recently made some changes in the manufacturing of the flash drives to make them compatible with Windows 8 certification. The changes are in effect from June 2012. Flash drives configured as fixed disks still function the same as those configured as removable disks.

Please refer to the link below for more information on this:

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a\_id/12830

Please refer to your My SanDisk at http://kb.sandisk.com anytime to see all of your incident history and product registration information. You can log in using your email address as your login and the password that you created.

Also, you can visit http://kb.sandisk.com, our online keyword searchable Knowledgebase, to easily find answers to your Technical Support and Customer Service questions for all of SanDisk's products. Simply enter your search terms and our Knowledgebase will search an extensive database of commonly asked questions as well as our online forums at http://forums.sandisk.com to provide you with the most complete answers possible.