How to prevent a partition from being mounted?

Question

I have two NTFS partitions that constitute a Windows 7 install. I am running Ubuntu and virtualize that Windows install off the physical disk. While the VM is working it could be disastrous if mount any of those partitions and make changes to them.

How do I prevent Ubuntu from mounting these partitions _at_all_?

Tried something along the

/dev/sda none ntfs,ro 0 0

in /etc/fstab but that just gave me an error..

Thanks!

Answer 1

You could try putting a space between ntfs and ro. And add a ,noauto to the ro (without a space before the comma.

Good luck!

Answer 2

This can be accomplished by blacklisting the NTFS kernel module.

Begin by typing the following into a terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf

At the bottom of the file, add the line:

blacklist ntfs

Save the file and restart your computer - you should now be unable to mount any NTFS partitions.