How to turn a folder into USB drive / mass storage?

I have a plasma TV with USB input (can play divx and etc) but what I would like to do is use a software to turn a folder in my notebook HD (windows 7) into a USB Mass Storage device, so that I can connect the TV to the PC using a USB cable so that the TV recognize the PC folder as a flash drive / usb mass storage.

is seems MAC has something like what I need:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661

So there must be a similar to windows!

FernandoSBS

Posted 2012-05-21T16:11:52.820

Reputation: 1 541

Answers

Host-side USB and peripheral-side USB are controlled by different hardware. Your PC has a host-side interface, and so does your TV. Your flash drive, phone, etc. have a peripheral-side interface.

You can never connect host-side to host-side, or peripheral-side to peripheral-side. The hardware doesn't support it. ("USB To Go" changes this but read on.)

I'm not sure of any Windows software that implements a mass storage interface over USB, but there is such software for Linux; Android and WebOS phones run it. But the software won't function unless the hardware USB chipset supports peripheral-side. (I'm not sure how the new "USB To Go" spec affects things but you would need hardware and a driver to support it.) Not sure how installing something like this would work.

You could possibly cobble something together with a rooted Android phone but I am not sure how it would work. There's apps for Android that expose the SD card via Samba over Wifi, and then you could connect the phone to the TV via USB. Have not tried it myself and I don't know if it will work.

Regarding your link above, Firewire is a more sophisticated and CPU-independent protocol than USB. USB (unless new "USB To Go" features are used/implemented) can't operate without a host controller orchestrating things.

LawrenceC

Posted 2012-05-21T16:11:52.820

Reputation: 63 487

since it's the software which sets if the device is a peripheral or a host, couldn't it be possible that "this" software sets a usb port linked to the directory/drive I want to work like if it was a peripheral? – FernandoSBS – 2012-05-21T18:22:55.133

@FernandoSBS The software does not set that up, The usb controller does, however some usb controllers allow the OS's driver to decide to put it in peripheral or host mode. But that does not mean all of them do. – Scott Chamberlain – 2012-05-21T19:47:24.240

1How could I check if mine gives that option? – FernandoSBS – 2012-05-21T20:32:20.650

@FernandoSBS - Determine what usb controller it is and do research. – Ramhound – 2012-10-31T11:33:07.500

A lot depends on what your application consider a real drive so it is a trial and error process and nothing is guaranteed to work. There are several ways of simulating a file drive.

get something like truecrypt which will mount a file as a disk
http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/, filedisk simulates a disk with a file
not sure if there is a loopback device in windows like a linux, but worth a search
there are virtual cd/dvd softwares which might work for you as well, if it takes a cd/dvd as input.

johnshen64

Posted 2012-05-21T16:11:52.820

Reputation: 4 399

ok but I don't want to use a file, I would like to use a regular folder, so that my downloads are seen by the tv like they were on a pendrive. – FernandoSBS – 2012-05-21T16:32:19.567

a folder probably would be hard to present as drive and offhand i do not really know one, although the reverse (mount a drive as folder is possible). as a workaround, you can have an automatic sync from your folder to a virtual drive with a software like deltacopy. this duplicates the storage, though. or you could mount a virtual drive in a folder with disk management and do that way. you would have to experiment a little. i did things like this or something very close a few years back so it is a bit vague now what really worked. – johnshen64 – 2012-05-21T16:36:30.013

There might be a hardware solution that looks like a USB cable with regular connectors on both sides, but internally has two USB slave devices linked together. Coupled with some software that you install on the computer, it might do the job.

You probably can't do it with pure software in the modern world.

vadipp

Posted 2012-05-21T16:11:52.820

Reputation: 252