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how to write protect a USB key ?

I have a pen drive which I used to carry some files from my laptop to other public computers, these public computers are virus infected. Now I want to make my pen drive write protected so that these viruses can't infect my pen drive.
What are solutions ?

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Its the reverse of this – soandos Jul 4 '11 at 20:07
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closed as exact duplicate by random♦ Jul 4 '11 at 22:15

This question covers exactly the same ground as earlier questions on this topic; its answers may be merged with another identical question. See the FAQ for guidance on how to improve it.

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Buy a new USB drive with a write protect switch.

Short of this, there isn't any guaranteed way.

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+1 I won't add any buying recommendations but they do exist and are not hard to find - I had one and it was very handy when de-lousing infected machines. – Linker3000 Jul 4 '11 at 20:52
A lot of SD cards have a write protect switch. May be less convenient, though, if the machine doesn't have a built-in cardreader. – Steve314 Jul 4 '11 at 21:55
I may be incorrect but I have read before that the implementation of the SD card slot does not demand that the write-protect switch be respected on the hardware level, so it is possible to use a device that will ignore this switch. – Frederick Jul 8 '11 at 18:59
@Frederick - You are correct... but... I have never seen any SD card read/writer that detects this - It is down to a feature on the actual card and controller chip inside the card. – William Hilsum Jul 8 '11 at 19:24
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up vote 0 down vote

You would need to be able to edit the registry on the system you're inserting your USB drive into.

Add (DWORD) or modify existing key at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect

and set to 000001 to disable writing, 000000 to enable writing.

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As I have said that these computers are public computers so I can't edit registry of these computers. Any other solution? – Kakim Jul 4 '11 at 21:01
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