Answers from ELIC

   

Editing “Read-only” Files from a CD

Welcome to “Answers from ELIC”, an on-going exposé of clever resolutions to complex conundrums cursing Cuesta computer users.

Q: I keep my pictures in a CD-ROM. I transferred some of them to my hard drive and started editing, but when I tried to save them a message showed up saying, "Could not save file because it is marked read-only. Change the 'read only' attribute using Windows Explorer." What's going on?

A: When a file is written to a CD, the attributes are automatically changed to read only. This is entirely appropriate, as you can't further change the file and write it back to the CD again. That's just the nature of files on a standard CD.

(Yes, we’re aware that there are rewritable CD’s. We’re talking “standard CD” here.)

When you copy a file from one place to another, the attributes of the source are left unchanged in the destination copy. Since what you copied from was a read-only file from a read-only disk, that attribute was retained when you pasted the copy to your hard drive. Fortunately it's only a minor inconvenience to reset the attribute.

  • Using Windows Explorer or My Computer, locate the files on your hard drive that you copied from the CD.
  • Right-mouse click on one of the files. A shortcut menu will appear.
  • From the shortcut menu select Properties. A Properties dialog will appear.
  • On the General tab, at the bottom of the Properties dialog, uncheck the “Read-only” attribute.
  • Click OK.

Repeat steps 2-5 as necessary.

 

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