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The only real thing I miss from Diskettes is Hardware Write Protection. Too bad flash drives did not have that. Yes, I can mount ro, but having a Write Protec

by jmclnx 2y ago

The only real thing I miss from Diskettes is Hardware Write Protection. Too bad flash drives did not have that. Yes, I can mount ro, but having a Write Protection switch would have been nice :)

freedomben 2y ago
I likewise really miss that. Some early USB drives actually had those too, but it's been a really long time since I've seen one.
- self_awareness 2y ago
  Big SD cards also have a physical switch that enables readonly mode, although I don't know if it's the reader firmware which disallows write requests, or simply the software driver needs to support it.
martijnvds 2y ago
A bunch of my SD cards have a write protect slider on them. Also one of the SD/microSD adapters in my drawer has it.
- sgerenser 2y ago
  Apparently the write protection on SD cards is entirely optional and only enforced on the drive/reader side. The reader can just choose to ignore it and allow you to write to the card willy-nilly: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/325868/how-does-sd-card-write-protect-switch-work https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/325868/how-d... And apparently is common for them to be ignored: https://superuser.com/questions/1737227/is-it-now-typical-for-usb-sd-card-readers-to-ignore-the-write-protect-switch-lo https://superuser.com/questions/1737227/is-it-now-typical-fo...
  - tjoff 2y ago
    Floppy drives are the same. Though maybe more commonly respected.
dmitrygr 2y ago
SD spec has write protection (not the sliding switch). Protection can be temporary (resettable via a command) and permanent (not resettable). A write protected SD card will ignore write commands from the host. Curiously, most OSs do not seem to check for this, and will pretend the writes work and then be surprised when they did not (eg: Windows, Linux).
- dividuum 2y ago
  For anyone curious: https://github.com/BertoldVdb/sdtool https://github.com/BertoldVdb/sdtool is a tool to for that. I may or may not have bricked a card while toying around with in on a Pi :)
  - djmips 2y ago
    Do you mean brick because you turned on permanent write protection (and it worked) or do you mean the card just completely died for unknown reasons?
    - dividuum 2y ago
      It turned on write protection. It was a while ago, so I don’t remember exactly, but things got weird as the OS assumed writes got persisted while in reality they just got completely ignored. Was a fun experiment.

by jmclnx 2y ago

The only real thing I miss from Diskettes is Hardware Write Protection. Too bad flash drives did not have that. Yes, I can mount ro, but having a Write Protection switch would have been nice :)

freedomben 2y ago

I likewise really miss that. Some early USB drives actually had those too, but it's been a really long time since I've seen one.

self_awareness 2y ago
Big SD cards also have a physical switch that enables readonly mode, although I don't know if it's the reader firmware which disallows write requests, or simply the software driver needs to support it.

martijnvds 2y ago

A bunch of my SD cards have a write protect slider on them. Also one of the SD/microSD adapters in my drawer has it.

sgerenser 2y ago
Apparently the write protection on SD cards is entirely optional and only enforced on the drive/reader side. The reader can just choose to ignore it and allow you to write to the card willy-nilly: https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/325868/how-does-sd-card-write-protect-switch-work https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/325868/how-d... And apparently is common for them to be ignored: https://superuser.com/questions/1737227/is-it-now-typical-for-usb-sd-card-readers-to-ignore-the-write-protect-switch-lo https://superuser.com/questions/1737227/is-it-now-typical-fo...
- tjoff 2y ago
  Floppy drives are the same. Though maybe more commonly respected.

dmitrygr 2y ago

SD spec has write protection (not the sliding switch). Protection can be temporary (resettable via a command) and permanent (not resettable). A write protected SD card will ignore write commands from the host. Curiously, most OSs do not seem to check for this, and will pretend the writes work and then be surprised when they did not (eg: Windows, Linux).

dividuum 2y ago
For anyone curious: https://github.com/BertoldVdb/sdtool https://github.com/BertoldVdb/sdtool is a tool to for that. I may or may not have bricked a card while toying around with in on a Pi :)
- djmips 2y ago
  Do you mean brick because you turned on permanent write protection (and it worked) or do you mean the card just completely died for unknown reasons?
  - dividuum 2y ago
    It turned on write protection. It was a while ago, so I don’t remember exactly, but things got weird as the OS assumed writes got persisted while in reality they just got completely ignored. Was a fun experiment.