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Lock a directory on a USB Flash Drive?

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Last response: May 28, 2011 5:25 PM in Windows XP

jgreg7

April 19, 2011 4:54:13 PM

I have a 64GB flash drive with a variety of diagnostic tools and utilities on it. However, when I plug it into various computers, the anti-virus programs sometimes remove these tools from the drive with the vague description of “hacktool”. This is quite inconvenient since sometimes the diagnostic tool I wish to use has been deleted.

Is there a way to create a directory on a USB Flash drive that is read only such that the AV software does not have access to it, but I can still copy from it?

(I still need to be able to write to the rest of the drive, so a simple read-only switched drive is not useful in this case)

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0shadow

April 21, 2011 11:10:06 AM

you can make a hidden partition inside the flash drive using truecrypt and work out with it..

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hang-the-9

April 21, 2011 3:38:48 PM

Why don't you just not act on the found viruses if you know they are not? After a Virus scan, the program should not automatically clean things out, but rather stop and say "found these issues, what do you want to do". Or at least you can configure it to do that.

Truecrypt is also a good thing to learn to use, and will keep the scan from that directory. Although you'd need to unmount the encrupted volume when you do the scan or it will pick up the files anyway unless you set the scan to only run on certain drive letters.

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jgreg7

May 3, 2011 2:08:51 PM

I tried Truecrypt, however it seems that you have to install Truecrypt on the computer you want to use it on in order to mount the encrypted drive.

What I am looking for is a way to lock the directory from virus scans and then still be able to access it when I need to. simple and easy to access.

Many of the computers I work on have a vairety of different AV configurations, some are set to silently clean files and do not give you a notification they have done so. I will go to use my utilities and find the exe files have been removed.

any other ideas?

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hang-the-9

May 3, 2011 2:37:43 PM

You can set directories not be scanned, but you need to do that on each computer.

You don't need to install TrueCrypt on the PC, you can run it from a directory containing the setup files without running the setup.

I actually used to use the program quite often on computers I needed to mount a virtual drive on that did not have virtual CD software. You make a Truecrypt volume containing the CD/DVD contents, then mount it, it puts it in a drive letter just like a drive.

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AntiZig

May 3, 2011 3:53:42 PM

I believe I saw a few flash drives that had a hardware switch on it that would disallow the data to be changed. That's obv not the case for you, but perhaps in the future you could look for one of those.

Also, I remember there was a U3 software that allowed to protect your data with password and you only need it installed on your flash stick.

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jgreg7

May 5, 2011 1:58:34 PM

The U3 software would have probably worked, but it has been discontinued from SanDisk and is no longer supported.

Does anyone know if you can run TrueCrypt from a flash drive? (Without having to install it to the host computer?)

(An earlier thread hinted at this, but I was not sure)