RE: Hard drive write blocking in Windows

From: Troy Larson (troyat_private)
Date: Wed Jan 09 2002 - 13:19:55 PST

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    Mr. Sawyer,
    
    By design, Windows does not like read only hard drives.  For this and
    some other fundamental reasons, software write-protection is problematic
    on Windows (any version).  Nonetheless, there is at least one company,
    KOM Networks, which purports to have a software based write-protection
    solution for Windows 2000.  See
    http://www.komnetworks.com/products/shieldworx/index.html.
    
    For analytical work, I would suggest you consider a hardware solution.
    You can use the read only SCSI/IDE bridge by A Card,
    http://www.acard.com/eng/product/scside.html, or a read only
    FireWire/IDE bridge, available from www.forensic-computers.com.
    
    Troy Larson
    Director, Litigation Support Services
    Attenex Corporation
    troyat_private
    ntevidenceat_private
    
    
    
    -----Original Message-----
    From: Sawyer, John H. [mailto:JSawyerat_private] 
    Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 8:58 AM
    To: 'forensicsat_private'
    Subject: Hard drive write blocking in Windows
    
    Hey Everyone.
    
    I am just learning about computer forensics on Windows platforms.  The
    problem I have run into is not being able to block writes to hard drives
    while in Windows.  I found PDBlock and NTFSDOS (read-only) but they both
    run
    in DOS.  I have a demo version of EnCase and when it runs, it says the
    hard
    drive is not mounted read-only.  Are there any utilities that run in
    Windows
    or load before Windows so that a drive can be mounted read-only but
    still
    accessible to programs such as EnCase?  I was hoping to find a utility
    for
    Windows instead of mounting the drive read-only in Linux and then using
    Samba to share the drive to Windows.
    
    Thanks in advance,
    
    
    -jhs
    
    ------------------------------------------------
    John H. Sawyer
    Computer Support Specialist
    Environmental Horticulture Dept
    University of Florida
    jsawyerat_private
    
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