My Dell Mini Forum

ade099 · **write protecting a usb drive? -** 01-25-2010, 02:50 AM

hey kiddos,
(i did a quick search for "write protect" and found nothing pertaining to my question, hence the new thread)
so i've been using my mini9 for a while and love it

(thanks mdd for my runcore!) and i have my win7 on a flash drive, but am kinda paranoid about virii sneaking in and dont wanna risk anything infecting it. does anyone know how to write protect it easily? i've searched online and the only things that come up are solutions that seem to only work on that particular machine (ie. if i change the registry on my desktop, i wont be able to write to my jump drive there, but if i stick it into my laptop, i can write there just fine). i dont wanna hafta regedit every machine i go to. any ideas?

tia!
-a

holmes4 · 01-25-2010, 01:54 PM

Are you booting from the flash drive? That's tricky to do with Win7. In any case, if Win7 is running from the flash drive, it must be writable.

Some USB flash drives have a switch that makes them read-only, but this is a rarity nowadays.

ade099 · 01-25-2010, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by holmes4

Are you booting from the flash drive? That's tricky to do with Win7. In any case, if Win7 is running from the flash drive, it must be writable.

yeah, it's the jump drive i originally used to install win7 on my mini9. i was just hoping for a way to prevent any kind of data corruption or virus infection. when you wrote "..if Win7 is running from the flash drive, it must be writable", did you mean that booting win7 off the jump drive requires that info be written to it?

Quote:

Originally Posted by holmes4

Some USB flash drives have a switch that makes them read-only, but this is a rarity nowadays.

i'm using a sandisk cruzer titanium so no write protect switch for me :/ i guess as long as i dont connect the drive to an infected machine and use it only for reinstallation after experimental mishaps, i would be fine, but i'm just one of those people that needs to figure out how to make everything work. lol

WolfKeeper · 01-25-2010, 02:39 PM

Windows constantly reads *and* writes to the registry. If you are running Windows off the flash drive, then it needs to be able to write to it.

ade099 · 01-25-2010, 07:43 PM

blah. that sucks. ah well. thanks for clearing things up for me!

holmes4 · 01-25-2010, 08:41 PM

Installing from the USB drive does not write to it. It sounded as if you had somehow installed Windows onto the USB drive and were booting the installed OS from it. That would be a good trick since generally Windows refuses to install onto or run from a removable drive.

ade099 · 01-26-2010, 06:05 AM

naw, my jump drive is essentially the win7 installation disc. does that make a difference to my options at all (installing from the jump drive still requires that it not be write protected)?

bsoplinger1 · 01-26-2010, 07:06 AM

Can't you just use the built-in OS tools to mark the root directory of the drive as not writable?

holmes4 · 01-26-2010, 01:44 PM

Do you need to leave this jump drive connected all the time? Or is it that you're using it for an additional purpose? You can set the protection of the folder with the Win7 install to read-only for all, but malware could easily get around that.

WolfKeeper · 01-26-2010, 01:48 PM

You could fill the flash drive up so there's no space for malware or a virus to add files. Use fsutil at a command prompt.

fsutil file createfile <filename> <length>

...where length is in bytes. Just create a file big enough to fill the flash drive.

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holmes4 Super Moderator Posts: 5,958 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: New Hampshire	01-25-2010, 01:54 PM Are you booting from the flash drive? That's tricky to do with Win7. In any case, if Win7 is running from the flash drive, it must be writable. Some USB flash drives have a switch that makes them read-only, but this is a rarity nowadays. Steve Mini 9\|2GB RAM\|64GB RunCore\|Intel 5300\|Windows 8

WolfKeeper Retired Mini user Posts: 1,577 Join Date: Oct 2008	01-25-2010, 02:39 PM Windows constantly reads and writes to the registry. If you are running Windows off the flash drive, then it needs to be able to write to it. Getting an iPad

ade099 Senior Member Posts: 208 Join Date: Feb 2009	01-25-2010, 07:43 PM blah. that sucks. ah well. thanks for clearing things up for me!

holmes4 Super Moderator Posts: 5,958 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: New Hampshire	01-25-2010, 08:41 PM Installing from the USB drive does not write to it. It sounded as if you had somehow installed Windows onto the USB drive and were booting the installed OS from it. That would be a good trick since generally Windows refuses to install onto or run from a removable drive. Steve Mini 9\|2GB RAM\|64GB RunCore\|Intel 5300\|Windows 8

ade099 Senior Member Posts: 208 Join Date: Feb 2009	01-26-2010, 06:05 AM naw, my jump drive is essentially the win7 installation disc. does that make a difference to my options at all (installing from the jump drive still requires that it not be write protected)?

holmes4 Super Moderator Posts: 5,958 Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: New Hampshire	01-26-2010, 01:44 PM Do you need to leave this jump drive connected all the time? Or is it that you're using it for an additional purpose? You can set the protection of the folder with the Win7 install to read-only for all, but malware could easily get around that. Steve Mini 9\|2GB RAM\|64GB RunCore\|Intel 5300\|Windows 8

WolfKeeper Retired Mini user Posts: 1,577 Join Date: Oct 2008	01-26-2010, 01:48 PM You could fill the flash drive up so there's no space for malware or a virus to add files. Use fsutil at a command prompt. fsutil file createfile <filename> <length> ...where length is in bytes. Just create a file big enough to fill the flash drive. Getting an iPad

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