up vote 3 down vote favorite
2
share [g+] share [fb]

I have a 1.5TB USB drive with many important files that I want to give to a friend (they have Windows7) for reading only purposes. thumbscrew appears to flip a registry switch but it seems to be on the local pc only.

UPDATE:

Are you aware of any USB drives that have such functionality built into their firmware?

link|improve this question
71% accept rate
As the posters below have stated; locking would either need to be hardware (like a switch on the USB) or done on the local machine. You could always mark your files as read only on the USB (right click-->Properties). Of course they could always un-mark the files from read-only and do whatever they like with them but the question is, will they? – emtunc Sep 2 '10 at 15:58
I've often wished my hard drive enclosure had a readonly switch like some USB flash drives do. That would make it much less unsettling to plug it into a friend's Windows machine. – Brian Sep 2 '10 at 17:40
Is is possible to format a pendrive using NTFS and then do it read-only with permissions? If a friend uses Linux, will the read-only protection fail? – kokbira May 4 '11 at 18:23
feedback

migrated from serverfault.com Sep 2 '10 at 20:17

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

What about checking the "Read-only" box in the main folder's Properties and then applying to all subfolders?

link|improve this answer
So far this is the only solution that will work on any computer and os. – iKarampa Sep 3 '10 at 8:18
1  
Note that this can be circumvented if you want to. At least on Linux (and probably on Windows) you can change the read-only state (or ignore it), if you have root/Admin on the machine the drive is connected to. – sleske Apr 5 '11 at 11:03
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

Any locking mechanism I'm aware of would be on your local machine.

Burn DVD's of the important stuff... :) That's about the only thing that will ensure they are read-only.

You might want to look at giving them a web interface via some apache file-sharing type of software. That would give them some sort of web-nas view and you could more easily lock down the writes...

link|improve this answer
1.5TB @ 8GB (dual-layer) = 192 DVDs... but they sure as hell would be read-only! – Nate Bross Sep 2 '10 at 15:53
1  
192*15min/60=48 hours to burn them. I am not doing that for any friend of mine! – iKarampa Sep 2 '10 at 16:13
Whoops - read that drive size wrong. I've added a web-nas idea to compensate. :) – Matt Sep 2 '10 at 17:13
and did not count upload time for 1.5 Tb...:) – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Sep 2 '10 at 21:31
No web server unfortunately, has to be the drive itself. Although this was an excellent suggestion! – iKarampa Sep 2 '10 at 22:27
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

I just finished researching this exact thing and came up with the following companies that might be relevant:

NexCopy http://www.nexcopy.com/usb-secure-flash-drives/

SecuTech (Their UniKey DRIVE) http://www.esecutech.com/software-protection/unikey-family/unikey-family.html

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

and did not count upload time for 1.5 Tb...:)

So As I understand, you want to provide your friend hole drive but your friend need part of them? Or you want to provide disk "with many important files" to your friend to get him/her access to hole 1.5 Tb content? Its a life, a lot of examples around, are you 100% guarantee your friend will be "your friend" for all entire life? Nothing personal, But just want prevent wrong steps... I do advise you to protect your info with something like that http://www.password-protect-software.com/protect-folders.html But its only my IMHO

link|improve this answer
It is just the accidental deletion I need protection from. – iKarampa Sep 2 '10 at 22:28
Ok, at this point just hide it: Free methods: makeuseof.com/tag/… Software: instantlock.net – S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Sep 4 '10 at 9:18
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.