A program for emulating a usb drive. We create a virtual flash drive in the computer. We collect, flash, test

What is it and why is it needed?
If the radio in the car has an input for a CD changer, you can connect a similar adapter to it, it will deceive the radio and it will decide that a changer is connected to it, and instead of disks, a regular flash drive with music is used. The adapter can be controlled by regular means, including steering from the steering wheel.

There have already been several reviews of such adapters on Muska, the most famous are the Chinese Yatour.

I decided to go a non-standard way, I decided to try the Russian Trioma Flipper 2.
Overall rating - excellent, satisfied with the purchase, I recommend.

For details, please under the cat

Foreword

There is a simple desire - I want to listen to music in the car. There is not always something suitable on the radio, it’s tired of carrying a bunch of CDs with you, and constantly recording them.
In my Peugeot 407 of 2007, there is a GU (Head Unit), later called simply a radio, without USB, bluetooth, and even without the usual AUX input.

If the car has an ordinary radio tape recorder that is not tied to controlling any functions of the machine, the easiest way is to just buy a new radio tape recorder. A branded radio with a USB input can be bought within a hundred euros. Some more amount will have to be spent so that she understands the controls from the steering wheel.

You can play around and attach an AUX (audio) input, but you will still need a sound source, and you will have to forget about steering control.

I discarded options with FM transmitters a long time ago - I tried a couple of different transmitters, the sound quality was not very good.

There is another way, to connect an adapter to the radio input of the CD changer, which will allow you to listen to music from flash drives, controlling the adapter with the standard means of the radio, including from the steering wheel. You can find similar adapters from different manufacturers with different parameters and differ in quality, reliability, convenience or price.
The most famous adapter is Yatour. The coolest, perhaps, is the American Grom Audio, which plays, among other things, FLAC. Well, to the heap a few more devices - Audiolink, Xcarlink, DMC, Dension.

First of all, I began to look at yatour. On ali it costs from $50. But the reviews on the Internet dampened the enthusiasm a little. The adapter has a linear output with a fixed level, so on many radio tape recorders the volume level is noticeably lower than from the radio. Sometimes unstable work, freezes, criticality to the presence of foreign files on the flash drive. The number of directories supported - how many disks the radio supports, in my case, it is 6.

Yatour does not have an official website, Yatour's websites on the Internet are sellers' websites. And the information has to be collected bit by bit in different places, mostly those who installed it for themselves unsubscribe, but their experience is not always suitable for your radio.
But I was lucky, I stumbled upon the Belarusian seller yatour Sergey aka SSD, who answered all my questions, including the features of working with my radio.
In general, it works, but there may be problems with volume and unstable job. From Sergey for the first time I heard about both Grom Audio and Triom, which he also sells.

Grom Audio on android supports FLAC but no model for my car.

But Trioma Flipper 2 interested. First of all, the ability to adjust the output level (volume). In addition, it has a much more convenient organization of folders and there can be many more of them. And it's much less buggy.
Po borrowed a good Yator vs. Trioma comparison table


Clarification on Yatura:
1. Extraneous files do not interfere with playback. At least on some firmware.

So, I made my choice. Trioma!!!
When buying such an adapter, be sure to choose a model for your car. More precisely, under the car radio of your car. Different radio tape recorders may have different connectors for the changer that are not compatible with each other.

Where can I buy Trioma?

On the manufacturer's website there are those who sell Trioma products. There are no problems with buying an adapter in Russia or Belarus. And in Europe, where it’s easier for me to buy from and I don’t have to clear customs and pay VAT, prices are twice as high, from 120eur without shipping costs.

I began to look for friends who could bring me an adapter from Russia or Belarus. Found!!! I found a friend from Russia who ordered and brought me an adapter in early February! Oleg, thanks!

And here is the adapter at my house!



The kit includes the adapter itself, a cable for connecting to the radio and a USB cable.
The length of the cable for connecting to the radio is only 40 cm, which immediately imposes restrictions on the location of the adapter in the car - it has to be placed directly behind the radio, you can’t even reach the glove compartment with it.
The adapter is about the size of a cigarette box. A simple plastic box with a protruding cable for connecting sub devices or AUX cables. However, after I connect the adapter to the radio, no one else will see it.
Additionally, I took an AUX cable with a minijack at the end (+500r)


A few more pics

Connector for additional devices, AUX cable or bluetooth adapter


mother on adapter


dad on cable


Connector for radio RD4


Do not open, guarantee


Installation

The RD4 radio tape recorder, unscrew the two screws with a hexagon and take out the radio tape recorder.

There are two suitable connectors on the back, one of them will not work - checked;)
The picture shows the connector you need. It has already been wired to connect the changer, we pull out the installed connector and turn on ours.


We connect the cable with the adapter, turn on the ignition and a miracle - everything worked right away !!! And the volume level is about the same as from the built-in CD.

But then we start to think - where to put the USB cable. The easiest way in my case was to throw the cable under the steering wheel into a small glove box to the left of the driver.


The adapter itself was shoved into a niche behind-to the left of the radio. There is not much space there, after installing the radio in place, the adapter was clamped there by cables, so it was not necessary to additionally fix the adapter.

On all forums they write that the radio requires activation of the changer in the service. It turned out to be much easier for me. After switching on, the radio itself determined that a changer was connected to it and it became possible to select it through the input switch (radio / CD / changer).
As it turned out, activation is needed not for the radio, but for the display so that it can reflect information for the changer.
But six months ago, I and the Chinese, well done, send a display with all activated functions. So everything worked for me without additional activation.

Adapter operation

Sound quality. Comparable to CD player. The standard acoustics in the car are rather mediocre, so you definitely won’t hear the difference with the regular CD player on my car.
Switching speed. Less than a couple of seconds after turning on the ignition on a flash drive with a couple of dozen directories. On the forums they write that with several hundred directories, the speed is less. The adapter remembers where it played before it was turned off and starts playing from the same place. This property is valuable for those who like to listen to audiobooks. The adapter remembers the location from the last 4 flash drives /
Switching tracks. Fractions of a second, there is no difference in the same or another directory is the track. During the switch there are no extraneous sounds.
Flash drive replacement. With the radio working, we take out the USB flash drive and put in a new one. It is determined within a couple of seconds and immediately starts playing. During the replacement, a very quiet short trill may sound.

The adapter understands 32 directories, which can have 32 subdirectories, each of which can contain up to 99 files. But I soon realized that my disk selector only switches the first six disks. Although in Random mode, the adapter sees all directories.

I asked a question on the Trioma forum, support responded very quickly and offered options for organizing directories. The problem turned out to be that on the RD4, although the buttons perform the Disc + / Disk- function, in reality they send direct disk selection commands 1-6 to the adapter. So these buttons can only switch 6 root directories or 6 subdirectories.
And managing 1024 directories on my radio will not work. You can only manage 32*6=192 directories;)

The description says that the FF / FR buttons perform a dual function - changing directories / subdirectories and rewinding.
But on RD4 Track+/Track- are combined with FF/FR and for the adapter these buttons have a triple function:
1. Short press - Track+/Track-
2. Pressing 2-3sec, release when sound disappears from the current track - switch directory
3. Long press >3sec, there is an accelerated muffled sound - rewind
Time is approximate, you need to focus on the sound

Even before the purchase, I assumed that I would write down one large mega-flash drive with hundreds of catalogs. But already now I see that it is more convenient to have several flash drives with different collections.
I have this now:
1. Russian stage 80-90s
2. Foreign stage 80-90s
3. Instrumentals

Total. For relatively little money, I got a bug-free adapter with good sound quality and simple, intuitive controls. I am very satisfied with the purchase, Trioma - well done!!!

Additional links

Mini FAQ

Some questions were left out of this review, I decided to put them in a separate mini-faq. Here I will add questions that arise in the comments.
  • What needs to be done in order for the names (file names, tags, or anything at all) to be shown on the display?
  • Triom adapters certainly "see" tags, file names, and folder names. Where possible, they display text strings on the standard displays of radio tape recorders: BMW and all cars with an optical MOST bus. Perhaps soon text output will be implemented for some Toyota / Lexus devices.
  • CD changers do the job without any problems.
  • I'm afraid you are mistaken: we do not know of external changers other than the models listed above that cope with this task. Changers built into the head unit are another matter, where text is output directly to the display controller - this is a completely different mechanism.
  • Can additional devices be connected to the Trioma Flipper 2 adapter?
  • You can connect to the adapter either an AUX-minijack 3.5 male adapter cable
I plan to buy +23 Add to favorites Liked the review +21 +46

Sometimes there are situations when you have to work with utilities (accounting, social, which require the obligatory presence of an external media in the computer). Or you just need to install a new version of the operating system. But what to do if there is neither a flash drive nor any free CDs. There is an exit! You need a special program that will work like a virtual flash drive.

OSFmount - a lifeline for those who do not have removable media at hand

OSFmount is a small program that will help you create a drive. This application can create both a ready-made image (image) of the drive, and RAM, which exists only in RAM. A floppy hard drive, an artificial optical disk, and, most importantly, a virtual flash drive - the program can mount all these images. Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 will create a virtual flash drive on any operating system Windows, both in 64-bit and 32-bit environments. In mount, you can even define a specific letter for an artificial disk and set the necessary attributes. At the same time, the size of the utility does not even reach 2 megabytes, its size is only 1.95 MB. Of the minuses, only that the program does not support the Russian language.

Instructions for using OSFmount

It is easy to use and it does not take much time and effort to create a flash drive. So, how to create a virtual USB flash drive on a computer using OSFmount:


Also, some options may be needed in the work, which open after clicking on "Drive Actions". This option has the following:

  • Dismount - for unmounting;
  • Format - with this option, you can perform formatting;
  • Savetoimagefile - to save in the required format;
  • Open - to open;
  • Set media read-only - prohibits recording;
  • Extendsize - serves for expansion;
  • Set media writable - allows recording.

This is how you can very easily make a virtual usb flash on a computer. You can choose any images for virtual flash. But in the case of a bootable image, the drive will have to be formatted and it will only open in this application.

An alternative version of this application is Virtual Flash Drive, which is also very simple and convenient when creating an artificial storage of information. Their difference is that OSTmount has more additional options and, in addition to usb flash, you can make other artificial drives.

Conclusion

Now it becomes clear that even if there are no external media at hand, and they are very necessary, then in a few clicks you can make their artificially created analogue.

Sometimes a situation arises when you need a flash drive, but it is not at hand. For example, some accounting and reporting programs require an external drive. In such a situation, you can create a virtual storage device.

Using a special software, this can be done in several ways. Let's consider each of them step by step.

Method 1: OSFmount

This small program helps a lot when there is no flash drive at hand. It works on any version of Windows.

After you have downloaded the program, do the following:



Additional features may be required to use this program. To do this, enter in the main window in the item Drive Actions. And then it will be possible to use the following options:

  • Dismount - unmount the volume;
  • Format - volume formatting;
  • Set media read-only - puts a ban on recording;
  • Extendsize - expands the size of the virtual device;
  • Savetoimagefile - is used to save in the desired format.

Method 2: Virtual Flash Drive

A good alternative to the above method. When creating a virtual flash drive, this program allows you to protect the information on it with a password. The advantage of this is its performance in older versions of Windows. Therefore, if you have a version on your computer Windows XP or lower, this utility will help you quickly prepare a virtual storage device on your computer.

Instructions for using this program look like this:

  1. Download and install Virtual Flash Drive.
  2. In the main window, click the button "Mount new".
  3. A window will appear "Create new volume", specify the path to create virtual media in it and click "OK".


As you can see, the program is very easy to use.

Method 3: ImDisk

This is one of the most popular programs to create a virtual disk. Using an image file or computer memory, it creates virtual disks. When using special keys when loading it, a flash drive will appear as a virtual removable disk.


Method 4: Cloud storage

The development of technology allows you to create virtual flash drives, and store information on them on the Internet. This method is a folder with files that is available to a specific user from any computer connected to the Internet.

These data stores include Yandex.Disk , Google Drive and Cloud Mail.ru. The principle of using these services is the same.

Consider how to work with Yandex Disk. This resource allows you to store information on it for free up to 10 GB.



Working with such a virtual storage medium allows you to fully manage your data: group them into folders, delete unnecessary data, and even share links to them with other users.

11

I have a Linux application for which I would like to automate some tests and its state should change based on the state of certain devices i.e. USB devices, WLAN devices, WAN devices. However, we no longer have physical USB, WLAN, WAN, etc. devices, so I need to figure out a way to test this program without actually plugging in physical devices, turning them on/off, etc.

I start by simply creating a virtual USB device that I can control from user space, but there is a fundamental lack of knowledge on my part that prevents me from taking any of the similar threads on these forums and applying them to my project. I feel like I need to create some sort of virtual usb driver and then link it to some user level program, not usbfs. However, even if I create this virtual driver, how do I "attach" this device from user space and get my program registered with this particular driver? Is what I'm trying to do even possible?

  • 2 answers

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0

Can't you test the application in a virtual environment with VMWare? You can then "attach" any virtual device on your computer to the guest virtual machine and test the application in this way.

8

The best way is to use Linux gadget drivers and hardware that allows you to be a USB device. The gadget driver allows the computer to "pretend" to be any device. Then your system under test has one USB OTG cable for the gadget. You don't even need to unplug the cable if your gadget has the right hardware. The "gadget box" could be your Linux desktop/laptop (as long as it supports USB OTG) or even an Android phone or Raspberry Pi. (Beware that USB cables suck out. Just because the cable fits doesn't mean it's properly connected to the USB OTG.).

Once you have the USB OTG hardware right, the gadget boxes all the software:

1) If the device under test supports OTG, make sure your gadget is not trying and is not a USB host. (Then your device under test will become a USB client.) I.e. make sure things like usb_storage are not automatically loaded.

2) The kernel supports gadgets for USB hubs, USB-Ethernet, USB-serial ports, and USB drives. Just load the modules you need into your gadget and it "just works". For example, to create a USB drive, do something like this: " insmod g_file_storage.ko file=/dev/ram0 ". The far side will think that you have connected a USB drive.

For serial devices, the gadget can run user-space code that "picks up the phone to /dev/usbx" and talks to the device under test. (Presumably an emulating 4G modem or whatever.)

Tons of devices are really "USB serial" under the hood because the manufacturer was too lazy to understand USB.

3) With a little re-compilation or tweaking, you can use those generic devices for gadget, ID, or return different vendor strings, etc. It won't be the same as "testing on real hardware", but at least you testing the standard version of these devices.

4) For device types that aren't in the core yet (like Wi-Fi or whatever), you're on your own. With enough sweat and tears of blood, you can write your own type of gadget. (Ideally, use as much as possible in userspace and only process critical components in the kernel..)

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