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Yep, or vice versa, put a bit of tape over the hole to make disks writable that weren't intended to be. Good times!
by julian37 16y ago
Yep, or vice versa, put a bit of tape over the hole to make disks writable that weren't intended to be. Good times!
- iwwr 16y agoUSB drives could use such a feature. write-lock: prevent it from beint written (and acquiring viruses) read-lock: prevent it from being read (and passing viruses), only showing the free space and being able to write only in the free space
- estel 16y agoI have several USB drives with at least the former feature.
- limmeau 16y agoI have a USB stick with a write-protect switch. Unfortunately, the switch has broken. Now the drive will contain 128MB of obsolete early-00s data until the bits diffuse away.
- jarek 16y agoSD cards have a write-lock. It always amazes me that it's purely physical and only a suggestion to the software.
- technomancy 16y agoGotta love how the write-lock switch is positioned just perfectly so that inserting it knocks the switch into read-only position.
- jarek 16y agoDoing that rather than switching into write-allowed position is a good example of fail-safe design. But yeah, I've had that happen more than once.
- nitrogen 16y agoOn some SD cards in some SD readers, the write-lock switch is too small to trigger the mechanical switch in the reader, making the card appear as read-only until tape is applied over the switch. This problem affects my BeagleBoard's OS SD card.
- th 16y agoI only ever had drives with write locks. I must have gotten into USB drives late because I've never heard of read lock.
- adolph 16y agoWhile not built into drives, an add-on hardware solution exists, Wiebetech's USB Writeblocker: http://www.wiebetech.com/products/USB-WriteBlocker.php http://www.wiebetech.com/products/USB-WriteBlocker.php
- marcinw 16y agoWe did this on VCR tapes too. Little electrical tap over the broken tab, and bam -- you've got re-writable media!