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I have a USB flash stick which is determined to be a USB hard drive in the BIOS. I also have a real USB hard drive, which is determined by the same BIOS as a USB CD-ROM drive.

What does this depend on?

Can I tell the BIOS that I have a hard drive, not a CD-ROM drive? Can this mistake prevent my hard drive from booting with a conventional boot sector?

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SO is for questions relating to programming. Please check the FAQs stackoverflow.com/faq – Ash Burlaczenko Oct 31 '11 at 16:58
I think that information is encoded in the first few bits of the drive's storage. – Blender Oct 31 '11 at 17:02
This is the question about programming. I need not solve this situation, I need to know how it is programmed. So I don't posting BIOS or hardvare models. – Dims Oct 31 '11 at 17:04
Blender, so how it can be that physical HDD is encoded as CD? – Dims Oct 31 '11 at 17:06
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1 Answer

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BIOS is pretty much telling you what the drive is telling you.

The same thing when data is sent to and from the device. All BIOS cares about is that it is a USB device.

As far as data corruption, no. You'll do just fine. Again, for all BIOS cares about, it's just another USB device. BIOS doesn't care about the file system it uses. You should only worry when your OS gets confused.

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