diff --git a/HISTORY b/HISTORY
index cb3989a3..7ad052aa 100644
--- a/HISTORY
+++ b/HISTORY
@@ -6,8 +6,10 @@ SnapRAID HISTORY
  * If a disk changes UUID, automatically disable the inode
    recognition, because this is likely a new filesystem with
    all the inodes reassigned, and we don't want to risk a false
-   positive when searching for inode.
- * Does not count empty dirs as files in the diff counters.
+   positive when searching for inode/timestamp/size.
+ * Allow to run a fix command with disks that doesn't needs to be
+   fixed mounted as read-only.
+ * Doesn't count empty dirs as files in the diff counters.
 
 5.1 2013/12
 ===========
diff --git a/util.c b/util.c
index 1714245d..72c89fad 100644
--- a/util.c
+++ b/util.c
@@ -1235,6 +1235,7 @@ int pathcmp(const char* a, const char* b)
 int mkancestor(const char* file)
 {
 	char dir[PATH_MAX];
+	struct stat st;
 	char* c;
 
 	pathcpy(dir, sizeof(dir), file);
@@ -1262,12 +1263,17 @@ int mkancestor(const char* file)
 	}
 #endif
 
-	/* try creating it  */
-	if (mkdir(dir, S_IRWXU | S_IRGRP | S_IXGRP | S_IROTH | S_IXOTH) == 0) {
-		/* just created */
-		return 0;
-	}
-	if (errno == EEXIST) {
+	/*
+	 * Check if the dir already exists using lstat().
+	 *
+	 * Note that in Windows when dealing with read-only media
+	 * you cannot try to create the directory, and expecting
+	 * the EEXIST error because the call will fail with ERROR_WRITE_PROTECTED.
+	 *
+	 * Also in Windows it's better to use lstat() than stat() because it
+	 * doen't need to open the dir with CreateFile().
+	 */
+	if (lstat(dir, &st) == 0) {
 		/* it already exists */
 		return 0;
 	}