Mounting SD Card as HardDisk on the Surface Pro

[Sovereign]

First and Foremost... This is FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY! USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! I TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY ISSUES THAT ARISE FROM THE USE OF THIS PROCEDURE. With that said, it works flawlessly on my Surface Pro.

Second, I want to thank MetalDwarf for coming up with a solution to enable this on 64 bit versions of Windows 7 which can be found at hardforum.com. Fortunately, it also works on windows 8. I also want to thank the other websites and original authors of software and instructions that are mentioned elsewhere in this guide. It took me a while to figure out how to do this so I consolidated all the information into this one document to simplify the research.

Direct downloads violate the forum guidelines

Download the 64bit Hitachi Microdrive driver “cfadisk-x64-1.zip”.

Download the Driver Signature Enforcement Override “dseo13b.exe” from NGHQ.com (It says it is only for up to Windows 7 but it does work on Windows 8)

Download My_WCP_Watermark_Editor.exe

Disable secure boot on the Surface Pro

Perform this procedure as originally posted at surfacetablethelp.com

"* First boot Surface to the UEFI Firmware Settings in Windows 8 “Advanced Options” UI.
Open charms bar from start screen, tap Setting > Change PC settings > General, and then “Restart now” under Advanced startup. Tap on “Troubleshoot” in the “Choose an option” screen > Advanced options > UEFI Firmware Settings, and “Restart” button.
You can also hold down the Volume Up key on the tablet during the initial stages at boot.
* While Surface are booted directly to an all black screen with two options: Security Device Support, Secure Boot Control.
Tap the space labeled [Enabled], next to Secure Boot Control, and select [Disabled] from pop up prompting. Then tap Exit Setup"

Enable Loading of Unsigned Drivers

run cmd.exe as the administrator
Now type the following
"bcdedit -set loadoptions DISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS" (without the "")
press Enter:
"bcdedit -set TESTSIGNING ON" (without the "")
press Enter:
Note: this will create a permanent watermark on the desktop showing the Surface Pro in Test Mode. This watermark can easily be removed with My_WCP_Watermark_Editor.exe

Editing and Installing the Unsigned Driver

The below part is copied directly from MetalDwarf's post and all credit goes to him, however, I have added the specifics to accomplish this on the Surface Pro.

Part A
First you need to find the name of your USB or SDHC device
run -> regedit -> navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBSTOR
Right click on "Disk&Ven_Generic-&Prod_USB3.0_CRW__-SD&Rev_1.00" and click "copy key name"

Part B
unzip the files from " cfadisk-x64-1.zip " and open cfadisk.inf in notepad.
scroll down to the section [cfadisk_device] you will see the line
%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,IDE\DiskTS64GCF400__________________________ ____20101008

delete everything after the comma so you are left with
%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,
paste your device string you copied in Part A starting from USBSTOR into the line just after the comma, no spaces.
you should have something that looks like this
%Microdrive_devdesc% = cfadisk_install,USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Generic-&Prod_USB3.0_CRW__-SD&Rev_1.0
repeat this process for the section immediately below called
[cfadisk_device.NTamd64]

If you are so inclined you can name your device at the bottom of the file by editing the text in the quotes in the last line after it says
Microdrive_devdesc = "your device name here"
save the file, you now have a functioning driver.

Part C
You now need to install the driver
Open Device Manager, open Disk drives, right click on "SDXC Card" and chose to update driver.
Click "Browse my computer for drivers software" then click "Let me pic from a list of device drivers on my computer." Now click "Have Disk" and open the .ini file you just edited.
Windows will bitch and complain that the file is not signed, and not a compatible driver. Proceed anyways.
Once installed you should see the USB device show up as a "Disk Drive"

Sign the Newly Installed Driver and Remove Watermark

Run dseo13b.exe as an administrator.
Click Next, then Yes.
Check "Sign a System File" and click Next.
Enter the path to the newly installed driver and click OK. For me it was C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\cfadisk.sys
Exit the program.
Run My_WCP_Watermark_Editor.exe as an administrator.
Check “Remove Watermark” at the top and click Apply Settings.
Reboot the Surface Pro and you should see the SD Card listed beside the C Drive as a Hard Disk. The watermark should also be removed.
Now you can move SkyDrive to the SD Card, install programs, create multiple partitions or whatever else you desire. Enjoy!

 

[mitchellvii]

Um, I achieve the same thing by pushing my SDCard into the slot. Am I missing something here? I can install and run programs from my SDcard, run libraries from it, pretty much do anything I would do with an SSD albeit far slower.

As a test I installed and ran full Office 2007 from my 32 Gb SDCard and it worked flawlessly.

I get real nervous about downloading a bunch of patches from god-knows-who that might be sending my personal data to god-knows-where. You use your very first post in this forum to instruct us on how to fundamentally transform our rigs? Proceed with caution indeed.

 

[vinumsv]

Hmm Disabling Secureboot :disappointed:
Disable Driver Signing mg:

But for brave heart it might work seems very complicated to me

 

[mitchellvii]

Hmm Disabling Secureboot :disappointed:
Disable Driver Signing mg:

But for brave heart it might work seems very complicated to me

Seems like an awful lots of gyrations just to have the SDCard do what it already does as far as I can tell.

 

[jawest12]

I see the reason for wanting this, such as proper indexing of files for use in the Music and Videos Apps. I solved this by creating a VHD on the SD card, mounting the SD card to a directory. Mounting the VHD to a drive letter. Setting a task to automount the VHD on reboots. Works like a charm. Indexing works consistently. I can sync SkyDrive with the SDcard with no issue. NO need to disable anything, or secure boot, driver signing, etc.

 

[Sovereign]

I see the reason for wanting this, such as proper indexing of files for use in the Music and Videos Apps. I solved this by creating a VHD on the SD card, mounting the SD card to a directory. Mounting the VHD to a drive letter. Setting a task to automount the VHD on reboots. Works like a charm. Indexing works consistently. I can sync SkyDrive with the SDcard with no issue. NO need to disable anything, or secure boot, driver signing, etc.

Thanks, jawest12. Your method definitely seems much more risk averse lol. My method does have other more advanced functions that it allows, however you method would have been perfect for what I needed it for. Maybe you should write a little guide to explain step by step. There are definitely people who could benifit from what you have done. I sure would have.

As far as the other comments by other users, I like to tinker with my electronics and I know there are other people who would find benifit in having the SD Card show up as a HDD.

 

[docangle]

You don't need to make any changes to the system, you just have to make sure your SD Card is formatted as NTFS or exFat, Fat or Fat 32 will cause some programs not to install on SD Cards.

 

[kgneo]

So many of the options for completing this simple task have been made unnecessarily complicated and risky. Once you have created your vhd or vhdx the following steps will mount it at Startup. Of course I don't imply nothing could go wrong 

Set up automatic mounting on system startup.
Win+W, type Schedule Tasks, enter.
In the tree on the left side, click on "Task Scheduler Library".
From the "Actions" pane, click on "Create Task"
Put mount D:\disk.vhd (or anything you'd like) as the task name.
Select "Run whether user is logged on or not"
Check "Run with highest privileges"
In Triggers tab, click on New, select "At startup" and press OK. * Those of you using Bit-Locker or have any other startup tasks scheduled you can add a delay here to allow those tasks to run first.
In Actions tab, click on New. Select "Start a program" as Action. In program/script, put C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe. In add arguments, write exactly "mount-diskimage D:\disk.vhd(x)” Leave out “x” if not using newer vhdx format. Also assuming you used D as your drive location .
In Conditions tab, uncheck everything.
Press OK
Enter your Windows password and press OK.
Restart the system and see if your new drive is visible after login.
Set up Windows Indexing.
Win+W, type Indexing Options, enter
Click on modify, check the new vhd drive (probably E).
OK, Close.
You can now create folders in the mounted vhd and add them to library.

I hope this helps - I can't take credit but I can tell you it works.

 

[Anderson65]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[tomdavid55]

I just bought a surface pro and made a 5gb mp4 video file then bought a 32gb SanDisk USB flash drive, tried to copy the mp4 to it but it says the file is too big for the 32gb drive. I check the properties orb then drive thinking maybe I go a smaller drive but it is 32 gb. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I just bought a surface pro and made a 5gb mp4 video file then bought a 32gb SanDisk USB flash drive, tried to copy the mp4 to it but it says the file is too big for the 32gb drive. I check the properties orb then drive thinking maybe I go a smaller drive but it is 32 gb. What am I doing wrong?

The 32gb flash drive is formated FAT 32 most likely. FAT 32 only handles files up to 4gb per file. your 5gb file is too big.
You can reformat the flash drive as NTFS or exFAT, but then some things may not be able to read the card.

 

[maloo78]

As nice as a virtual drive setup may be, I guess it is far quicker and easier to simply format the SD card in NTFS and mount it as a hard drive. That way there is no issue with the size of files that are copied to the SD, as long as there is sufficient space available.
The down-side is that the SD card will basically have to remain in the computer, as it no longer works as a removable media device.

All of this is only necessary if you intend on using it as a permanent storage extension, and rely on the USB port and other media for file exchange.

I have found this step-by-step instruction on the web, which is quite simple to follow, and requires only 10min (I did it with my empty 128GB (SanDisk Ultra microSDXC).

http://southpawprints.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/surface-pro-windows-8-and-a-micro-sd-card/
All credit goes to the author of the above linked blog!