Can I Create USB 3.0 Flash Drive With Undeletable Files?

Question

What is the method to make files in a USB Flash Drive undeletable? Does these method work with USB 3.0 interface?

(I have surveyed some Flash Drive manufacturers, and I only see undeletable files for USB 2.0 drives, and not 3.0 drives. One manufacturer claimed that USB 3.0 cannot do undeletable file, so I am curious whether the claim is correct...)

Answer 1

There is no way to make a regular flash drive read-only. At least not in such a way that it cannot be undone.

Some manufacturers works around this by creating a 3 in 1 device in which the seemingly single hardware contains an USB hub, the original device (could be flash storage, 3G etc) and an emulated CDROM drive. But that uses dedicated hardware, not off the shell consumer stuff.

For home users you could probably emulate this with a rPi or similar mini computer, though as far as I know those do not implement USB3 but USB2. The resulting device is likely either bulky or expensive.

Answer 2

Yes you can but it highly depends on the controller. You need to find the right tool for the specified flash drive/controller(USB Mass Production TOOL, aka MPTool). With MPTool you can make a protected partition or simulating a CDROM, either way the file on it will be undeletable, at least from a normal OS or without MPTool.

Here is an example to get you some idea. Again you need proper MPTool for the controller and not all controller have the tool available.

Answer 3

Yes you can make a flash drive readonly by using diskpart no mather if it is usb 2.0 or 3.0 or FAT or NTFS formated.

1. Open an elevated command prompt, type diskpart and press ENTER

2. Type: list disk

3. Let's say your flash drive is listed as "disk 2". You'll type:

select disk 2

attributes disk set readonly

4. If you don't want your flash drive to be readonly anymore you use the same commands as above but instead of "attributes disk set readonly" you use the following command in diskpart:

attributes disk clear readonly

Answer 4

No, basically you cant. Thats because you cant do this with software, its all about hardware (i mean the manufacturer can make the whole flash drive undeletable and thats for commercial.)

You can do something but it is environment dependent. You can use Folder Lock for windows which sets the attributes of its archive (it archive and encrypt your files into a file called locker ) to write protect / copy protect / and delete protect . but as I said it all just work in windown environment and people with unix can easily delete it (i dont know if they can decrypt your files) .
Or maybe there are similar methods for linux but they are linux-dependent too, meaning that the undelete concept only gets meaning in linux for that file.

Answer 5

I am not 100% sure about this one, but You should give it a shot:

Right click your flash drive in explorer and select 'properties', go to the 'security' tab.
At the 'Group or Username' there should be a user named "Everyone".
Press 'Edit' and at the checkboxes, look for 'write' > set if for 'deny'

Edit:
This method will not make the flash drive secure.
Anyone can re enable the write permission on it if they want to, but users usually don't know about this and will not even try.