32 GB Cruzer Glide useless because it shows as fixed

USB Flash Drives All USB Flash Drives
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Bug or not, if my Sandisk flash drive can’t be used as removable storage, I have no use for it.

I need a way to make it removable in order to create my emergency recovery media on my Vaio.  I’d greatly appreciate a solution to use it as removable – otherwise I’ll need another brand.    And so will every single Sony Vaio user who needs to create Recovery Media.

Any advice will be appreciated.

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Newer USB flash drives are being made to be Fixed rather than Removable to comply with Windows 8’s Windows to Go functionality.  And there are several manufacturers who are complying with this requirement.  So, when you buy a new flash drive check to see if it’s Windows 8 compatible and if it is buy something else.

You might also write to Sony and ask if they are going to patch their systems to support the new Microsoft direction.

More info here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/enterprise/products-and-technologies/devices/windowstogo.aspx

1 Like
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Wow wayneeusa, I am having the same issue. I need to create recovery media and cd roms are not working on my sony vaio. Then I go out and buy a $40 flash drive and it doesnt work. I dont know about you but I am never buying a sony computer again. My bro has a dell and it comes with recovery media in the box. This is rediculous! I had no idea that someone else was having the trouble I was having. 

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This would be fine except Microsoft also don’t let you load unattended.xml files for Windows setup from non-removable drives.

You may need the drive to be fixed to have a silly logo, but you need the drive removable to install windows with it.

When Windows Setup runs (Vista and later versions), Setup will look for a file called \AutoUnattend.xml on a  removable  drive. If the drive is fixed , it will not work.

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Thanks rtho782. This basically sums it all. I just don’t know why they made it this way.

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Yes Matthew – take comfort in the fact you are not alone, but unfortunately I don’t have any resolution anywhere yet.  I ended up buying disks and creating recovery disks that way, even though, as you, I preferred to do it with a flash drive.

Worse yet, I read that in order for flash drives to be certified for windows 8, they have to show as a fixed drive. I don’t know if this is true, but it seemed credible.  That means that Sony set up a process that won’t work with any new flash drives that are being created.  Rediculous as you said.

Like you, I’m not as impressed with some Vaio features as I could be. In the past, I always respected the Sony brand name, but I’m finding my Toshiba Satellite has a lot of features that just work while I constantly have to tweak things on my Vaio to get the same results.  And sometimes there are no solutions.  For instance, some movie disks will play on my Vaio and some will not. My Toshiba plays all of them.  This is confusing since my Vaio actually has a little better specs with a 1 TB drive and the I7 chip. I assumed the rest of the machine would be equally up to date (First time I’ve ever been wrong … j/k)