However, when copying a file or folder to a USB drive, pen drive, SD card or any removable disk, an error message happens to you, saying “The disk is write-protected. Remove this write-protection or use another disk”. If you click “Try Again” button, this issue still appears.
In this case, perhaps you think there is something wrong with this target device. As a matter of fact, it is in healthy status but only be write-protected which can’t allow you to write data to or change the data on the USB drive. Once opening USB write protection, you can only read data from the device, not doing any operation to it. Therefore, you get the disk write protected error when transferring a file or folder to your USB drive or SD card.
Why Write Protected USB Occur
Usually while encountering disk wrote protected issue during using Windows 10/8/7, you are wondering about the specific factors. Generally speaking, there are six related reasons. Keep reading now.
• Virus attack: various viruses are ubiquitous which are most likely to attack your USB flash drive, pen drive or SD card. Then the device is in write-protected.
• Read Only Switch: usually, there is a switch on your USB drive and it is set as “read-only”, then the disk is write protected Windows 10/8/7 issue exists.
• File Read Only: you probably have set the file as “read-only”, and then you are not allowed to copy it to a USB drive or other devices.
In addition, full disk, security setting, and corrupted device are still related to USB write protected error. After learning the reasons, it is time to fix disk write protection error. Do you know how to do this work? Here are some solutions according to different reasons.
How to Remove USB Write Protection
Solution 1: Check USB Flash Drive for Virus
Virus infection is a very common cause of the disk is write protected SD card/USB drive issue. When plugging your device to the computer, viruses come to this device and then the disk is write-protected. In this case, please download a piece of anti-virus software and then set it to automatically check your device and kill viruses after connecting it to your computer.
Solution 2: Unlock USB Write Protection
As the above content mentioned, usually there is a physical switch which is used to lock or unlock your device. If you lock it, disk write protection issue appears during copying files or folders to the device. Please check whether this switch is locked. If it is, unlock it now.
On the other hand, if your USB drive doesn’t have such a switch, but write protection error still exists in Windows 10/8/7, please turn to the next solution for help.
Solution 3: Ensure USB Drive Isn’t Full
In addition, full disk is also the main factor of disk write protected error. In order to remove USB write protection, please right click your USB drive or SD card partition to select “Properties” in Windows Explorer. Then you will see the free disk space. If the disk space is enough, but you still fail to copy files or folders with the disk is write protected issue, try the next way.
Solution 4: Change File Status
When a file is set as “Read-only” status, it is likely that there is a failure to copy it to the USB drive. In order to disable write protection, please check the target file status and modify it not in “Read-only” state.
Solution 5: Use Diskpart to Clear Write Protected USB
Besides, there is another way to disable the disk is write protected, which is to use diskpart. Please run CMD as administrator and then type “diskpart”. Then type the following commands in turn:
“list disk”
“select disk n”
“disk attribute clear readonly”
Solution 6: Modify the Registry
Please open registry edit, and then go to find “WriteProtect” by the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlStorageDevicePolicies
Then change the value from “1” to “0”.
This post was written by Anna Lan for Mazinoweb. Anna is an editor running a blog on MiniTool Solution. She usually writes articles about technology, software, computer, hardware and so on. You can connect with her on Twitter and Google+.
