My Hard Disk is Read Only

My Hard Disk is Read Only

Chris Farmer Managed IT Support Services, Nutanix

You can, on occasion, hit a small stumbling block when adding a new hard disk to a machine, where the disk is marked as Read-only.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

In my case, I am using the Nutanix Community edition and I have added a new hard disk to my server.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

Before I can format the drive, I have to remove the Read-only attribute.

To do this, complete the following steps:

Open a command prompt as an Administrator, type in Diskpart and then press Enter.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

Type in List Disk and press Enter.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

Choose the disk that you want to remove the Read-only attribute from. In my case, I know that it is a new disk and therefore will have Free Space. So I will look at Disk 3.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

To select the correct disk type Select disk n, in my case I will type in select disk 3 and press Enter.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

We now need to check that the attributes of the disk match. To view the attributes type in attributes disk and press Enter. You should see that both Current Read-only State and Read-only both equal Yes.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

To clear the Read-only attribute, type in attributes disk clear readonly and press Enter. You will see a cleared successfully message appear.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

In Windows, find the Disk Manager tools and you should now see the change has occurred or you may need to refresh the disks.

My Hard Disk is Read Only

You should now be able to create and format the volume.