Windows – Differentiating between USB flash drive and USB hard drive on Windows

usbusb-driveusb-flash-drivewinapiwindows

I'm trying to differentiate between a USB flash drive and a USB hard drive on Windows using the Win32 API.

The GetDriveType() function will return DRIVE_REMOVABLE if the drive is removable, and USB flash drives are of course removable. But I'm thinking that Windows probably considers USB hard drives removable as well (unfortunately I don't have access to a USB hard drive to test it out).

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

If you want to determine that a device is USB device, you can open its handle and send IOCTL queries using DeviceIoControl() to get bus type a device is connected to.

EnumUsbDrivesLetters - the post is in Russian but it contains C++ source code, so the matter could be understood easily.

Cheers, Andriy

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.net – How to find USB drive letter

You could use:

from driveInfo in DriveInfo.GetDrives()
where driveInfo.DriveType == DriveType.Removable && driveInfo.IsReady
select driveInfo.RootDirectory.FullName

Windows – Accessing a USB device without using the drive letter in Windows

If you are using NTFS, You can create 'volume mount points' in Windows. (Similar to *NIX, if you have used that).

Mount points make a folder on your filesystem (your C drive, say) point to another volume, so "C:\usb1" could actually contain the contents of a USB drive.

There are a couple of articles on the Microsoft site which should point you on your way: How to create and use mounted drives About Volume Mount Points

Best Answer

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.net – How to find USB drive letter

Windows – Accessing a USB device without using the drive letter in Windows

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