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How can I write protect a hard drive


acpowell

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I am looking to try and change my build from having 2 buttons to power it on, to just having 1 button.  In order to do that I would need to make my hard drives (2 of them) write protected so when the machine powered off it wouldn't corrupt the data.

 

I am using windows 10 pro with a SSD and a Mech drive.  Any thoughts on this?

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Break the little plastic tab on it's side.

 

If you need to write something to it after, just place a piece of tape on it.

 

All I could find was the sticker that said warranty void if removed.  Since I didn't want a void to appear, I didn't remove it.

 

 

Put tape over the notch. If you need to write to it later you can take tape off. Oh wait thats for a 5.25 floppy sorry... ;)

 

Well mine is not 5.25 it is a 3.5.  So this is just no good.

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All I could find was the sticker that said warranty void if removed. Since I didn't want a void to appear, I didn't remove it.

Well mine is not 5.25 it is a 3.5. So this is just no good.

LOL you use floppy disk
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I am looking to try and change my build from having 2 buttons to power it on, to just having 1 button.  In order to do that I would need to make my hard drives (2 of them) write protected so when the machine powered off it wouldn't corrupt the data.

 

I am using windows 10 pro with a SSD and a Mech drive.  Any thoughts on this?

 

What kind of setup is this? I'm confused. As far as the OS drive goes, you won't be able to write protect it.

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What kind of setup is this? I'm confused. As far as the OS drive goes, you won't be able to write protect it.

 

I am trying to write protect my OS drive. I basically want to be able to "yank the power cord" and not have the drive data be corrupted.

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What you're looking for is the modern day equivalent of an OS RAM drive. That doesn't exist in the Windows world, the OS needs write access to the drive. You could get fancy with a virtual machine, but there are more moving parts there than I think you want to deal with.

 

The linux equivalents would be the afore mentioned VM, or a Live CD/DVD (boot times are ugly).

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I don't think you can. When you shutdown windows properly, it will finish doing whatever it's doing like writing temp files for background processes. If you press the power button, you inturrup those processes and will end up with corrupted data. Depending on what you interrupt, your computer might not even start cleanly next time.

 

You will end up with a dos prompt asking you if you want to restart normally, or in safe mode or revert to a previous version.

 

Don't mess around with it. Just shut the thing down properly.

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I am trying to write protect my OS drive. I basically want to be able to "yank the power cord" and not have the drive data be corrupted.

why do you want to yank anything? why not just power it off like a normal person by using a power button?

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I don't think you can. When you shutdown windows properly, it will finish doing whatever it's doing like writing temp files for background processes. If you press the power button, you inturrup those processes and will end up with corrupted data. Depending on what you interrupt, your computer might not even start cleanly next time.

 

You will end up with a dos prompt asking you if you want to restart normally, or in safe mode or revert to a previous version.

 

Don't mess around with it. Just shut the thing down properly.

I don't think what you are proposing is possible, Windows will write data to your drives continually I doubt it will event boot if it cant write the the disk you will most likely get an I/O error. Why are you trying to avid writing data to your drive in the first place what is your real need / concern?

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I am using the power button but as of right now there is one in the back of the cabinet (an actual on/off switch) then there is the momentary switch for the computer side.  I was trying to make it so I could just use one switch to power on the cabinet and the computer rather than deal with 2 switches.  If I could make it so the main drive is read only then I wouldn't have to do much work figuring out how to combine a process that uses 2 different kinds of switches without a ton of rewiring.

 

To confirm was most people were saying, technically I can make the main drive read only but when you go to boot, windows has a hissy fit.

 

If another method for just using 1 switch is suggested; I am willing to try it.  

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I am using the power button but as of right now there is one in the back of the cabinet (an actual on/off switch) then there is the momentary switch for the computer side.  I was trying to make it so I could just use one switch to power on the cabinet and the computer rather than deal with 2 switches.  If I could make it so the main drive is read only then I wouldn't have to do much work figuring out how to combine a process that uses 2 different kinds of switches without a ton of rewiring.

 

To confirm was most people were saying, technically I can make the main drive read only but when you go to boot, windows has a hissy fit.

 

If another method for just using 1 switch is suggested; I am willing to try it.  

 

You could wire a button to your power button on your PC, then configure Windows to shut down when the power button is pressed. If you use it with a smart strip your entire cabinet will turn off just by powering down the PC.

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You could wire a button to your power button on your PC, then configure Windows to shut down when the power button is pressed. If you use it with a smart strip your entire cabinet will turn off just by powering down the PC.

 

I don't know that a smart switch will work.  The cabinet has a power cable with a built in latching switch. When that switch is on the marquee light comes on; also inside the cabinet is a C13 cable and I have a C14 male to 4XC13 female Y type splitter which powers my amp, my monitor and my computer.

 

If I understand the smart switch correctly I would need to have everything plug into it and I don't know that I want to do that.  

 

It is looking more and more like I will just need to relocate the latching switch in the back of the cabinet to a more accessible location and then just have 2 power buttons.  Unless there is some circuit that could act as both a momentary for my computer and a latch for my cabinet.  When power is applied to the cabinet it would power on the computer and when the computer shut off it would power off the cabinet.

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You could wire a button to your power button on your PC, then configure Windows to shut down when the power button is pressed. If you use it with a smart strip your entire cabinet will turn off just by powering down the PC.

Exactly. You simply set the Windows option to shut windows down properly when the power button is pressed. No need to worry about shutting it down "properly" manually or write-protecting anything.

On mine it all plugs into the smart-switch. Press the cab power button (hidden on top, out of sight) turns on the PC, then monitor, then marquee and speakers. Press it again and it all powers them all off again smooth as butter.

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