0
I am using an external USB3
disk drive for backups.
My PC works under Windows 7
.
So far, the USB disk has permanently been connected to my system.
Probably not a good idea anyhow, as the disk is powered on all the time and thus accessible for spyware. Failing software or my own mistakes could damage the disk content. I would also like to prevent ransomware like TeslaCrypt
to spoil my backups.
Question:
Is there any convenient way to lock and unlock the external drive without unplugging the USB cable?
Switching the power is no option as the disk is powered via USB.
Edit:
Meanwhile, I have tried Microsoft's devcon.exe
tool along the lines of this post. But the disable
operation always failed. I used Administrator
privileges and chose the proper 64-bit
version, but could not make it run.
Thanks for your answer, but I am still hoping for a simple single-click solution, probably via .cmd script. What are your objections against USB drives? Especially with changing systems, they offer quite a lot of flexibility. – Axel Kemper – 2015-12-21T22:58:46.943
@AxelKemper USB drives are very convenient, but they are very susceptible to failure. You can access the online/offline that I mentioned using DiskPart. Make a DiskPart script (launch with
diskpart /s <script>
), select the disk/volume, and use theOFFLINE
command. – oldmud0 – 2015-12-21T23:50:33.887