Help with creating custom virtual drives programmatically

[darkwhisperer]

Im writing an application that will use the free unused hard disk space on the many machines on our network, and combine them into one. A database and back-end application will control access to the the files(which files are on which machine,etc). This part is no problem. The part I'm having difficulty with is the presentation of this data to the user. The intention is for the user to access this data like another drive connected to the machine. But I'm struggling to see how to do that. I'm hoping to create a virtual NTFS drive thats presented to the user, and this drive/layer communicates with my application to present the data to the front end.

Please, does anyone have any ideas on how I can create this drive/layer?

[Jito463]

There's a function built into Windows to mount a folder as a hard drive. I can't recall the command off the top of my head, and I'm at work so I don't have access to my usual collection of miscellaneous commands I have written down.

*EDIT*
I guess I had it on my flash drive.

Mount directory:

subst x: <full path to directory>

Unmount directory:

subst x: /d


Where x: = whatever drive letter you want.

[darkwhisperer]

Already considered subst...

Hi Jito463,

Subst wont work, I've already considered it.

I need the front end to the user to show a drive. The back end is another story altogether. I'll explain via an example.

Say a user wants to copy a file to this "drive" He pastes a file in a directory. My "drive" must intercept this incoming file. This file will instead go to a local service, which will zip & password it, upload the details of such to a database, and get the destination for the file (actual machine&Dir on network) from said database. It then sends this file off to that destination. The "drive" MFT is updated as having that file there, but it actually isn't. I guess the "drive" is little more than a dummy.

So the back ends pretty complicated. Its the "showing a drive to the user, and intercepting calls to the drive" part thats pretty much got me stumped. No doubt if I could see the code of subst, it will help. but Im not likely to have much luck there.

Thanks for the response though

[Jito463]

Well, in that case, good luck.

[darkwhisperer]

Well then...

lol, quite apt...

I've decided that trying what I was suggesting was beyond my capability.

Instead I'll create an upload/download front-end that will communicate with the server. If you want to work on something, you download it, work on it, & upload it, overwriting the original.
Its not native to windows, and its a bit more work for the user, but that cant be helped. Perhaps in the future I'll come back and look at making the disc space like a local drive.

Thanks...

[IDDesigns.Net]

lol, quite apt...
I've decided that trying what I was suggesting was beyond my capability.
Instead I'll create an upload/download front-end that will communicate with the server. If you want to work on something, you download it, work on it, & upload it, overwriting the original.
Its not native to windows, and its a bit more work for the user, but that cant be helped. Perhaps in the future I'll come back and look at making the disc space like a local drive.
Thanks...

Well, in that case, good luck. thans

[IDDesigns.Net]

Yes Well, in that case, good luck.

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