I have a HP USB hard disk
On Microsoft Windows it shows virtual CD (1MB size) and a hard disk.
I need to remove the virtual CD (or to make it a secondary disk) because
i have a TV media player with USB port that reads only the first external
drive, and the media player finds only the virtual CD-ROM, cause it's the first detected drive!)
I opened the case and found:
1)A SATA-USB adapter
2)A SATA western digital hard disk (320GB) model WD3200BEVT
Connecting the disk direcly to a desktop pc, using the sata connector, i can format and use the hard disk.
The SATA-USB adapter has these main components on it:
1)INIC-1607E (INITIO chip) (SATA to USB Bridge Controller IC with AES)(
http://www.si-tech.co.jp/eng/v-ini.php )
2)oscillator (for clock)
3)flash memory (1Mbit) model “25X10avnig” by winbond
Since the flash is only 1Mbit size, i assume that virtual CD (1MByte) resides on Hard disk,
BUT i made the following operation:
1)I removed the hard drive, installed on a desktop pc, deleted partition (only one was present) and formatted with FAT32.
2)I connected again the Hard Disk in the HP usb adapter
Now i can see (with Windows) only a CD-ROM drive (1MB size)!!!
If i open "hard disk management tool", windows tells me that the external hard drive has no partition!
Then i can format the disk from "hard disk management tool" and let it work again (but the virtual CD problem is still there!).
Here some questions for you:
1) Any ides for my problem?
2) If i will disconnect the 1Mbit flash (the data or clock pin on the PCB), will the INIC chip work as interface between me and the hard disk or do it needs to read the external flash?
what is stored on the external flash? just a personalization code o the entire operative system?
3) i requested the complete datasheet to initio, but they still didn't answer. If they will answer i will ask them some flashing tool.
Do you have any datasheet or flash tool for this INITIO chip ?
I know it is the same chip installed on some Western Digital hard disks.
Thank you all for your support,
This is my first post on this comunity, hope to became guru soon.

Gaucho.