1 Topic by newtogparted

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Topic: Write-Protect USB Drive

I believe there is a way to do this in Gparted, but if there is, I'm not sure how to do this. I know how to boot into gparted and I can see my flash drive, but after that, its all new to me.

Basically, I want to write-protect my flash drive. I know that this can be undone if someone boots into gparted and removes it, but if its write protected in windows, then that would be fine. Thanks.

2 Reply by class413

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Re: Write-Protect USB Drive

I don't understand the issue. GParted doesn't provide any command to write-protect a flash drive.
Do you mean perhaps that you could set the "Hidden"attribute for a partition? I don't know if it is an effective way to prevent access to the partition.
There are some usb sticks that provide encrypted partitions, but this is based on firmware, I think.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***

3 Reply by newtogparted (edited by newtogparted 2013-08-08 23:27:49)

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Re: Write-Protect USB Drive

I have seen multiple threads were people were having problems trying to format or write to a usb, because it said the usb was write protected. What solved their problem was using gparted to format the drive. So I guess I kind of assumed that gparted could reverse the process, but I don't really know.

How do I set the hidden attribute for a partition? I can try that, but not sure if that's what I am looking for.

4 Reply by class413

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Re: Write-Protect USB Drive

You can find instructions to this chapter of the GParted Manual.
The hidden flag is often used for a recovery partition of the preinstalled operating system.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***