Thumbscrew

Thumbscrew is a lightweight and portable program that lets you deny the copying, moving and deletion rights to USB flash drive or IDE/SATA drives. It is easy to figure out, even by users with less or no experience in such apps.

Since installation is not a prerequisite, you can store Thumbscrew on a USB flash drive or any other removable device, save it to any computer and run it on any computer. Thus, you may keep the app in your pocket whenever you're on the move.

Otherwise, you can just place the program files on any location of the hard drive and run the executable file directly. What's the most important aspect is that the Windows Registry section does not receive new updates, and no files are left behind on the hard drive after removing the app.

Upon deployment, Thumbscrew creates an icon in the system tray area. By clicking it, you have the possibility of making the USB flash drive or IDE/SATA drive read-only, by simply clicking a button. The same action is required to undo the changes. However, there are no other options available through this tool.

The small app barely uses CPU and system memory, so it shouldn't put a strain on the computer's overall performance. It has a good response time and immediately applies changes to the drives, without causing the operating system to hang, crash or display error notifications; we haven't encountered any problems throughout our testing. Unfortunately, Thumbscrew has not been updated for a very long time.