Access to devices at physical level 1

[mingis]

Hi all.

I wonder how could be disk/flash drives accessed dirrectly, not using logical drive letters C:, D:, K:, etc. There should be some interface points for read/write access dirrectly in device drivers. For example, WinHex from X-Ways has such a possibility at menu option Tools/Open Disk. Upper part of the list of possible disks consists of ordinary logical driver letters, lover part - of device names of physical media.

http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/index-m.html

Where should I start to dig to find out how to do it? In MSDN I didn't reach any success.

BTW, the problem actually is, that we have obtain possibility to split flash key drives into several partitions like hard disks do, but only one partition per key could be mounted to a logical disk drive letter.

Thank you.

 

[xwb]

Try the cygwin site. They seem to access the drives as /cygdrive/c etc.

 

[Salem]

Well spinning disks can be accessed at the physical level (permissions permitting) using createFile
Scroll down to "Physical Disks and Volumes".

As for low level access to say flash cards, I've no idea at the moment.
Perhaps

http://www.lvr.com/usb.htm

--
If you dance barefoot on the broken glass of undefined behaviour, you've got to expect the occasional cut.

 

[mingis]

It is nice, when somebody has patience to read articles till the end...