USB flash drive prompts with "Write Protected" message.

Anonymous

I have recently purchased a 32gb usb flash drive. I have been using it ok until 3 days ago. I now get a message saying "Write Protected". There is no write protection switch on the device. How do i remove the write protection.

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Anonymous

Hi,

You can remove write protection from your usb flash drive using the below method:

a. Open start menu, in the search bar type regedit and press enter. This wil open the registry editor.

b. Navigate to the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Note:

If the registry key StorageDevicePolicies does not exist, you will need to create it manually.

c. Highlight StorageDevicePolicies, and then create a New DWORD (32-bit) Value named as WriteProtect.

d. Double click the key WriteProtect in the right window and set the value to 0 in the Value

Data Box and press OK button

e. Restart your computer and try copying files into your USB drives.

Important Note:

Sometimes this problem is caused by two Windows registry entries that have become corrupted. To fix the problem, you have to use Registry Editor to delete the corrupted registry entries.

However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.

For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, follow the steps as in the KB Article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/

Hope this helps.

Thanks and Regards:

Shekhar S - Microsoft Support. Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

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66 additional answers

Anonymous

2013-07-17T01:55:35+00:00

I tried this on two different computers and it did not work on either one. First was Windows 7 64 bit and the other was Windows 8.1 64 bit. Mine is an 8 gig ScanDisk. I had previously made it a bootable USB drive using DiskPart. I first was just wanting to add data to it and received message that it was Read Only so tried to format it and it won't do it. On the Windows 7 system I went back into Diskpart and did a Remove to unassign it and now it won't even show as an available drive. Did a recover and it still doesn't show. It does show as available drive on the Windows 8.1 set but still will not format. Still works as a bootable drive but not what I want to use it for right now. It is not even a week old at this point.

thanks for any help

Doc
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Anonymous

2013-07-21T07:17:43+00:00
1.Press start > run

Press Window + r
1. Type regedit
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
3. Then SYSTEM
4. Then CurrentControlSet
5. Then Control
6. Find SystemDriverPolicies
    check dword value if it is 1 then change it to 0

    or

    if it is 0 change it to 1

Note: if no folder SystemDriverPolicies exist then follow these steps:

(Create if not have such folder

                                               >By Right Click On Control Folder

                                               >Select New)

                                               >Then Key and Name it SystemDriverPolicies

                                               >New Folder will generate)

8.Then Right Click on SystemDriverPolicies>Select New>then DWORD (32-bit) Value

9.New Value will generate with default value 0 selected
1. Enter on it and Change Value to 1 and hit enter
or if 1 then change it to 0
1. exit regedit
2. remove your pendrive and plug it again
wait to be detect by windows

WARN : don't access pen drive directly by exit regedit

first exit regedit and plug out device and then plug it again

you can access it now

On every website or blogs the method change the value from 1 to 0

but I can access my pendrive by change it from 0 to 1

just try it :)
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Anonymous

2013-10-05T22:46:12+00:00

I have tried this method a number of times, and each time it has not worked. What other options are there??
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Anonymous

2013-10-06T09:14:14+00:00

I have tried this method a number of times, and each time it has not worked. What other options are there??

If you read from the beginning of the thread, you will see that there are a number of options.

I have tried every known method, using other operating systems and low-level format tools. Originally, I was trying to fix the USB sticks, but now I've given that up and it's just out of interest to see if a solution can ever be found.

Some work for corrupted System Policies. However, there are a lot of cases where there are no known means to make the USB drive 'readable' - see my earlier posts.
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