How can I prevent OS from writing to disk

Question

I want to prevent the Operating System from accessing the hard drive for short period of time.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 07 '11 at 10:12

1

You can't prevent the OS from using the disk.

answered Sep 07 '11 at 10:12

David Heffernan

Can I send the disk to sleep (same as done using the power options) ? – hamoub Sep 07 '11 at 10:30
No. The OS owns the disk. It might need to use it. If it needs to use it, it's going to do so. Why would you want to stop the OS using its disk? – David Heffernan Sep 07 '11 at 10:34
Sorry for the long delay, I have a board with a specific chipset that have only one PATA bus. I have two phisical disks. one of them should be removable. However, when I remove the removable disk, the OS disk also get disconnected for a short period of time. In this time, the OS get stuck / getting a "blue screen". I want to notify windows to stop using the drive during the removing period. regards. – hamoub Sep 08 '11 at 12:00

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 07 '11 at 10:13

1

By unplugging the disk for that period.

answered Sep 07 '11 at 10:13

tonekk

However, the operating system is running on the same disk, won't I get a blue screen ? – hamoub Sep 07 '11 at 10:15
Well, that might going to happen... You could load the OS into the Ram, but i'm not sure if Windows can do that... – tonekk Sep 07 '11 at 10:18

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 07 '11 at 10:35

0

Make filter driver for filesystem or volume device. Be caution with pagefile operations.

answered Sep 07 '11 at 10:35

Sergey Podobry

Filter driver that blocks is liable to lead to deadlock. – David Heffernan Sep 07 '11 at 10:37
@David Heffernan: it depends on what you do while disk i-o is blocked, call wrong API - and you are deadlocked, call good one - nothing bad happened – Sergey Podobry Sep 07 '11 at 11:45

3 Answers3