How to Make a Volume Read-Only

The DiskPart utility lets you set your drives or volumes to read-only.

The command-line DiskPart utility included with Windows lets you set attributes and make changes to your hard drives that you can't perform with the Disk Management utility. These changes include setting a drive or volume to read-only. If you are trying to recover deleted or overwritten data from a volume, or if you are conducting a forensic examination of a hard drive, set the drive or volume to read-only to avoid the possibility of having additional data accidentally written to the drive.

Instructions

1. Click "Start," type "cmd" in the search bar and press "Enter." Type "diskpart" at the command line.

2. Type "list volume" to get a list of the volumes on your system. Each volume has a number and drive letter associated with it; the drive letter helps you determine the volume you want to set as read-only.

3. Type "select volume=x" -- without quotes -- where "x" is the number in the volume number list. For example, to set your "D:" drive as read-only, and the "D:" drive is volume "3" in the list, type "select volume=3."

4. Type "attributes volume set readonly" to set the selected volume to read-only status. Any attempt to write data to the volume will cause a "The disk is write-protected" error.

Tips & Warnings

• Type "attributes volume clear readonly" to let you write data to the disk again.

References

• Cornell University: A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility
• Microsoft TechNet: DiskPart Command-Line Options