Freeware Utility for HDD Write-Protection

Many IT warhorses from the early days of computing can relate to the concept of write-protecting a floppy disk.

An antiquated, thin plastic storage medium to store less than 2MB of data, the floppy drive has long outlived its usefulness. However, the functionality of the floppy write-protect tab lives on as a freeware utility: Reboot Restore Rx from Horizon DataSys Corporation.

Write-protection was originally designed to protect data that was housed on the floppy disk from being overwritten or deleted. In the 1990s many hardware manufacturers introduced hardware based recovery cards that would essentially restore a PCs hard drive on every restart. Unfortunately, installing hard drive restore cards on thousands of school PCs was not practical. The next stage of the evolutionary process of write-protecting shared computers was to move to a software based solution.

There are many commercially available solutions today that use the reboot-to-restore technology in order to write-protect the hard drive. With regards to free write protection utilities, Microsoft introduced one called Windows SteadyState which has been discontinued. Until recently then there were no commercial organizations that offered a freeware utility for PC write-protection. Reboot Restore Rx has filled this void and has been embraced as the replacement for Windows SteadyState.

The big IT buzzword these days is cloud computing. But since most data is now securely saved offsite most organizations are concerned more with productivity and making sure that the endpoint computing devices are always available and fully functional than with the cloud servers.

"Every single cloud has thousands of devices," says Lyle Patel, president. "It’s easy enough for admins to maintain their cloud infrastructures… it’s the endpoints that constantly need to be reconfigured."

IT departments are now looking at ways to write-protect their computing assets, so that they are always uniformly configured.

Reboot Restore Rx can be seen as a Write-Protect tab for PC’s hard drive. It delivers a Non-Restrictive computing environment that does not limit the user’s access to any Windows functionality in any way. Non-restrictive hard disk protection is the method of protecting public access PCs.

"School systems save big on PC management and gain in student productivity," says Kritesh Dewan, senior account manager. "No longer do you need to contact your resident PC tech after Joey has inadvertently messed up the registry or installed malware. With Reboot Restore Rx, a simple reboot and all changes that he’s made instantly vanish."

In addition to its Freeware offering of Reboot Restore Rx, Horizon DataSys also offers more advanced features for hard drive Write-Protection. They have more progressive solutions such as Drive Vaccine and RollBack Rx.

"With our advanced RollBack Rx software, we offer unique capabilities including the ability to update the baseline which can save ad-hoc changes at any time without having to restart the PC," explains Patel.

Horizon DataSys recently added to their range of instant restore solutions targeting the IT service desk industry. It was exhibiting at NAB Show in Las Vegas, NE.