make external hard drive read only windows 7

This does not work in XP, since the XP edition of diskpart does no include the 'attrib' command that the answer relies on. For serious forensic work you should always use a hardware write-blocker in every step of the process (and you should always be working with images of the original drive after you image and create a signature for the original drive).Īs an alternative method, I would consider imaging the source drive with a non-Windows operating system onto a new drive, and working with the new drive in Windows. Tried to connect on your Mac but it says ‘Read only’ How to resolve external hard drive read only on mac without losing any data The answer is in this post. In that case you really either need to mount it in an operating system that does support read-only mounts, or, best of all, use a hardware-based write-blocker. This is a suitable technique for troubleshooting but is not a suitable technique for forensic purposes. In particular, toggling this bit and forgetting to toggle it back off prevents Windows from booting when you return the disk back to the source system. You're modifying the disk to prevent it from being modified. Fat32 (called vfat in linux) will be read-write on both operating systems. Wait a minute, then plug the USB cable back in. When that has finished, unplug the USB cable. The change you're making using diskpart to toggle a readonly attribute on the volume is making changes to the 'read-only' disk. Formatting the drive as ext3 will make it unreadable on a Windows system and formatting as ntfs will make it read-only (you cant copy files onto it) on linux systems without the correct software. Right-click on your EHD and select Uninstall device from the pop-up menu.

It's definitely not like a read-only mount on a *nix operating system. There is a built-in mehanism to mount a filesystem read-only in Windows, sort of.

Make external hard drive read only windows 7