Locking CD/DVD drives

[gerardsweeney]

Hello, all..

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this - perhaps someone can move it if required?

This isn't a plea for help, more of a "this seems to work for me, so perhaps it'll be useful"

One of my pet hates is support calls saying that the CD/DVD drive on PC123 keeps opening, and I get there to find some little darling has crammed something (often unspeakable) in it. The record is a 30cm plastic ruler folder up. Nice to see they're dedicated to something!

I digress.

In 99% of my classes, the pupils have absolutely no need for the CD/DVD drive - other than to amuse themselves by breaking it.

I've put together a small script which installs the Open Source CDROM-Lock (CDRom-Lock | Download CDRom-Lock software for free at SourceForge.net) as a background service using ServiceEx (ServiceEx - Run Applications as a Service)

Once running, there's a system tray icon where you can enter a password to unlock a drive.

Basically, it's configured to lock all CD/DVD drives - though you can always tweak it to your own requirements.

Because it's a service, the door is also locked on the login screen.

It's not perfect, but it's a start

The script is a small AutoIt script to let you install/uninstall the service.

Should anyone wish a copy of the script, let me know.


Cheers,
Gerard

[bladedanny]

Even with the drive locked, if students wanted to gain access for whatever purpose they'd just shove a paperclip into the release hole. They would here anyways.

[Stephen041085]

all our main IT areas have computers with the cd drives etc removed, and just usb sockets on the front for usb drives etc.

the empty drive bay is then covered with either the machine specific blanking plates, or black perspex. B

Behind that exterior, we have also glued in some metal plates. stops the little darlings punching through the fronts and stealing the ram too!

[Arthur]

I've actually stopped ordering machines with DVD drives, they're just not used any more

Same here, although we started doing this over five years ago. No one has complained since.

[gerardsweeney]

Even with the drive locked, if students wanted to gain access for whatever purpose they'd just shove a paperclip into the release hole. They would here anyways.

Not with the Optiplex chasis, you can't.. Dell "helpfully" have it hidden behind the chasis.

Unfortunately, it's not the case with the HP ones we have now. Tch...

[Jamesdavid3]

Same problem