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How can I make a virtual USB drive in Windows? Can it be done with DAEMON Tools or something like that?

The reason is that I need the USB drive to use them instead of a physical USB. Sometimes I need to load certificate from USB but I left it at home and when I'm on the job I want to make a virtual USB and put on them certificate, so how can I do that?

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    It's maybe sound like xy problem but it's very clear and exact question, anyway ... i need usb drive to use them instead of physical usb. Sometimes i need to load certificate from usb but i left it at home and when i'm on job i want to make virtual usb and put on them certificate, so how can i do that? ... thnx for effort
    – john
    Jun 20, 2013 at 9:55
  • You could use a Ramdisk: memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk
    – Axel Kemper
    Jun 20, 2013 at 12:06
  • @AxelKemper thnx man for help it helps me, but still i didn't find way to fool application which check it certificates are on real usb or not ...
    – john
    Jun 20, 2013 at 14:47
  • Yes, the idea of smartcards and USB tokens is that nobody should be able to copy them (entrust.com/smartcards-and-usb-tokens). To use a "two-factor authentification" you have to 1) know something (a PIN or password) and 2) have something (the token). You could use an X.509 PKI certificate stored in a file (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.509).
    – Axel Kemper
    Jun 20, 2013 at 16:20
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    Many programs require a removable usb to interact with rather than an HDD folder and thus providing a method to build a virtual removable usb is an important query in its own right.
    – Mr Purple
    Aug 21, 2017 at 20:52

1 Answer 1

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You can use ImDisk to create a removable USB drive

imdisk -a -s 536870912 -m R: -o rem -p "/fs:ntfs /q /y"

-a      Attach a virtual disk. This will configure and attach a virtual disk
        with the parameters specified and attach it to the system.
-s      Size of the virtual disk. Size is number of bytes ...
-m      Specifies a drive letter or mount point for the new virtual disk ...
-o rem  Specifies that the device should be created with removable media
        characteristics.  ...
-p ...  The 'format' command to create a filesystem when the new virtual disk has 
        been created. "/fs:ntfs /q /y" is: Create an NTFS filesystem with quick 
        formatting and without user interaction.

How to install

  • For a CMD version download ImDisk Toolkit, extract it with 7-Zip and copy these 2 files:

      ..\cpl\i386\imdisk.cpl
  ..\cli\i386\imdisk.exe

  • For a GUI version download ImDisk Toolkit and just install it.

Further links

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    Please don't write USB in your answer, ImDisk creates just removable drive not USB removable drive. If vmware is running that will not detect a new usb drive and will not provide an option to attache to guest.
    – Sumit
    May 11, 2019 at 14:39

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