Is there a simple way to write protect USB drive?

Is there a simple way in KDE to write protect USB drive? I have permanently attached Clonezilla USB live session and I have by accident deleted files on it and broke the USB. Im just trying to prevent this accident from happening again.

 

The question is: Who are you trying to protect it from?

 

Myself.

 

If there is no physical switch to turn on write-protect, I think it could be very hard to achieve.

 

Depends on how good you are at soldering -
Almost all controllers have the capability but very few implement it these days .
But if you can find the product-sheet for your controller you can see what legs to solder a switch onto ...

 

Okay let me rephrase my question. Is there anything simple that would let me hide my USB drive from the Dolphine File manager?

I just want to prevent myself from accidentally deleting files. I don't need malware proof read only protection.

 

Try this:

o to the DISK PARTITION utility - press start button and type "diskpart.exe" into search, open that file and click yes if prompted by the user account control,

In the black command prompt window type "LIST DISK"
now look for the drive you want to write protect (I use the sizes to identify the correct drive) and note the number it has to the left

Now type "SELECT DISK 1"
if 1 is the drive number you want to select

Now type "ATTRIBUTES DISK SET READONLY"
Should say it attributes set successfully

Now close the black command prompt window and make sure it worked by trying to move something over to it and also trying to delete a file.

If you set your disk read only, you can read but NOT write to the disk.

A software utility that allows you to enable/disable write protection on a USB flash drive can be found here:

http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/thumbscrew-software-usb-write-blocker


Good luck!

 

You can always write to the raw device or use hdparm or any other utility to cause damage. There's no truly effective way to protect from yourself really, except a bunch of maybe workarounds.

How about you unmount the usb drive and access it only when needed?

Mrk

 

Opensuse is wierd, according to their forume usb drives are unmounted by default. However they still show up in the Dolphin file manager and when you click on them they automatically mount...

I went to Preferences --> removable drives and i confirmed that auto mount is unchecked and grayed out.

I just kind of want a simple utility or an option. If there isn't any then it's fine.

 

Did being careful now work out?

 

Although these instructions are on a Xfce page, it should work with KDE too:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xfce#Hide_Selected_Partitions

 

Thanks, will try that.

No I have been trigger happy