How to determine if a drive is external storage
How can I tell if the drive is an external USB storage device? I checked DriveInfo.DriveType but with my 1TB external hard drive connected via USB it shows up as a fixed drive.
Thoughts?
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2 answers
Based on the comment from Floyd Pink I used the link. This allows me to determine if the device is external or not.
public bool IsProjectOnExternalDisk(string driveLetter)
{
bool retVal = false;
driveLetter = driveLetter.TrimEnd('\\');
// browse all USB WMI physical disks
foreach (ManagementObject drive in new ManagementObjectSearcher("select DeviceID, MediaType,InterfaceType from Win32_DiskDrive").Get())
{
// associate physical disks with partitions
ManagementObjectCollection partitionCollection = new ManagementObjectSearcher(String.Format("associators of {{Win32_DiskDrive.DeviceID='{0}'}} " + "where AssocClass = Win32_DiskDriveToDiskPartition", drive["DeviceID"])).Get();
foreach (ManagementObject partition in partitionCollection)
{
if (partition != null)
{
// associate partitions with logical disks (drive letter volumes)
ManagementObjectCollection logicalCollection = new ManagementObjectSearcher(String.Format("associators of {{Win32_DiskPartition.DeviceID='{0}'}} " + "where AssocClass= Win32_LogicalDiskToPartition", partition["DeviceID"])).Get();
foreach (ManagementObject logical in logicalCollection)
{
if (logical != null)
{
// finally find the logical disk entry
ManagementObjectCollection.ManagementObjectEnumerator volumeEnumerator = new ManagementObjectSearcher(String.Format("select DeviceID from Win32_LogicalDisk " + "where Name='{0}'", logical["Name"])).Get().GetEnumerator();
volumeEnumerator.MoveNext();
ManagementObject volume = (ManagementObject)volumeEnumerator.Current;
if (driveLetter.ToLowerInvariant().Equals(volume["DeviceID"].ToString().ToLowerInvariant()) &&
(drive["MediaType"].ToString().ToLowerInvariant().Contains("external") || drive["InterfaceType"].ToString().ToLowerInvariant().Contains("usb")))
{
retVal = true;
break;
}
}
}
}
}
}
return retVal;
}
Using WMI Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk
as in Royi Namir's answer and DriveInfo.DriveType
showing my external type as "Local Disk" which I cannot use to determine if the disk is external.
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you can use WMI with
Select * from Win32_LogicalDisk
you have
Select Case .DriveType
Case 0
strDriveType = "Unknown"
Case 1
strDriveType = "No Root Directory"
Case 2
strDriveType = "Removable Disk"
Case 3
strDriveType = "Local Disk"
Case 4
strDriveType = "Network Drive"
Case 5
strDriveType = "Compact Disc"
Case 6
strDriveType = "RAM Disk"
End Select
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