Tuesday, September 07, 2010

lock and dismount every volume of a physical drive

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lock and dismount every volume of a physical drive
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LockDismount is a small tool that does only one thing (or two to be exactly). It locks and dismounts every volume of a physical drive (HD or UFD for example). That's it!

So what is that good for?

Microsoft changed the way programs can directly write to physical drives in Windows Vista and later.
More technical background informations about this new 'feature' (or restriction) can be found here: http://msd.........353.aspx

Unfortunately some older (but still good and useful) programs are not compatible with this new restriction and stopped working. You will usually see an "Access Denied" error message when they try to write to \\.\PhysicalDriveX.

This is where LockDismount can help. By locking and dismounting all volumes it will allow some of these older programs to work again.

How to use it?

It's simple. Select the Drive you want to lock and press 'Lock it!'. Now open the 'older program' and let it perform the task that usually gave you the access denied error message. When done, unlock the drive again. That's all.
The only important thing is that every volumes gets successfully locked and that you keep them locked until the other program is done.

Please note that you can not lock your system drive or any drive that holds a pagefile!

The idea for this little tool was born here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...st&p=108122 by Wonko cheers.gif
So you know who you have to blame for it

Programs tested so far:

Windows 7:
- RoadKil's Disk Image v1.6
- dsfi (part of the dsfok package)
- Flashnul

Windows Vista:
- still looking for testers

Download: LockDismount v0.2.0.0