105. How Do I Remove Read Only Attributes From Files Backed Up To A CD

Copying backed up files from a CD/R to your hard drive or copying the files backed up using the Windows Backup Utility, have one disadvantage over files already stored on your hard drive. That disadvantage is that, when copied from CD/R to your hard drive, they are copied with Read Only attributes. Therefore, although you have retrieved the file(s) you are unable to make changes to them.

To correct this problem you need to copy the files from the CD/R to your hard disk and then change the attributes, as follows:

Click the Start button.
From the Start menu click All Programs>Accessories>Command Prompt.
At the Command Prompt window change to the directory/folder where the read only files are stored. For ease it is better, when originally copy the files from CD/R to your hard drive, that you copy them to the My Documents folder. However, you may have copied them, elsewhere so type:

C:\"name of folder" (Type the folder name without the quotes – e.g. c:\temp)

Once you arrive at the required folder type the following: attrib –r *.* /s
You should now be able to write to all the files you copied from the CD/R.
Alternatively if you only have one specific file that requires the attributes changing, copy the file from the CD/R to your MY Documents file. once in My Documents right click on the file and select properties. In the properties box make sure there isn't a tick mark next to the Read Only box. If there is a tick in the box next to this option then Right click on the box to remove the tick, click Apply and then OK. You should now be able to both read and write to this particular file.