How to mount an NTFS partition read-only in Windows?

Question

I feel like this is a really simple and fundamental function that Windows should have, but so far Google has been telling me it isn't possible. How can I mount an NTFS partition read-only in Windows?

Answer 1

You can modify the volume attributes to make it read-only:

• Switch off "automount" by running mountvol.exe /N
• Connect disk to Windows (do not mount the disk)
• Run diskpart
• Enter list volume
• Enter select volume X (where X is the correct volume number from the previous command)
• Enter attributes volume set readonly
• Enter detail volume and ensure the read-only bit is set

Now you can mount the volume and it will be read-only.

Note that the diskpart commands can be abbreviated, e.g. att vol, det vol.

See also: http://crawlmsdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc302206.aspx