Usb Drive Being Very Unco-operative!

I have a USB drive that refuses to be written to. The message is "This drive is write protected" and I don't know how to make it unprotected - or how it even got into that state. I searched the net for answers and followed instructions to open powershell and insert instructions to change this. None worked.

I have tried formatting but again I get the same message "drive is write protected"

Just wondering if there is anything else I might try?

Thank you!!

I just realised after posting that a USB drive is technically hardware in which case this is in the wrong category. Sorry!

 

Follow these instructions.
https://www.lifewire.com/remove-write-protection-windows-10-8-7-4586905

 

Thank you. I had already tried the DISKPART utility and it reported "that the operation was "successfully completed" but the drive still reported that it is write protected! So I will try REGEDIT this time.

Thanks again!

 

Okay - using my laptop which has win7 (not wanting to use regedit on my win10 desktop), I followed the instructions:


Edit the Registry in Windows 7 to Remove Write Protection
If you use Windows 7, the process to edit the Windows Registry to remove write protection is a little different.

Press Windows key+R.

In the Run dialog box, enter regedit and press Enter.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Services.

Select USBSTOR.

Double-click Start.

In the dialog box, enter 3.

Close the Registry Editor.

However the value in "start" was already at "3" so effectively there was no edit to the registry.
Out of interest once finished I tried to write to the USB drive but I got the same message as before "Drive is write protected"

Sigh - quite frustrating. Many people would suggest throwing it away and using another but it's one of those special ones that can be flipped around and plugged into an Android smartphone so I'd rather try to fix it.

 

Try running method 3 using Easeus Tools M - https://www.easeus.com/storage-media-recovery/remove-write-protection-in-windows-10-8-7.html#3

BTW That regedit for Windows 7 above could not possibly work. That's just the start up type (manual) for the service.

 

Thank you _nullptr. I tried this utility and although initially it looked like it had worked, one or two files were copied then it stopped and gave the message "Disk is write protected". I am beginning to wonder if this might be something that might have been built into the drive - something sneakily insisted on by the Digital Rights Management people as I was copying a bunch of mp3 files from my PC intended for use on my smartphone. This does seem unlikely to me and I think I may be becoming paranoid. It's tempting to try the REGEDIT but I suspect that that is all the EASEUS utility does?

Anyway, thank you for your suggestion.

 

Okay - I have now had a look at REGEDIT but cannot see a natural progression from step4 to step 5 in the instructions. Where is "Storage Device Policies"? I expanded >Control and scrolled down through its huge list but there is nothing on my Windows10 Registry that says "Storage Device Policies" under this category.

 

PS I asked the REGEDIT to do a search for the string "write Protection" and it could not find it.

 

Here's the commands to add and remove the registry value, they're self explanatory. Just launch either cmd.exe or powershell.exe as administrator and copy/paste the relevant command.

Code:

REG ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies" /v WriteProtect /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

REG DELETE "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies" /v WriteProtect /f

 

Can you not format the USB drive from your Android phone?

 

Are their any files of the USB drive which you wish to keep? If so then move them to your PC or another drive.
Have you used diskpart to wipe the drive?
Open powershell with admin & enter:
Diskpart
List disk
Select disk X (where X is the number of the USB drive you’re having problems with).
Clean.

Then go to device manager & initialise the drive then format it.

If at any point there’s any error then the drive is dead/has failed so a new drive is required.

 

Thanks Goddess - I already tried DISKPART and the message it gave was that "the operation was successful". That turned out to be untrue!

 

Thanks _nullptr - will try that later.

 

Did you try the clean cmd the first time or a cmd to unlock the drive?
The drive would be blank if you ran the clean cmd so if it’s still saying locked/read only then the drive has failed.

 

I'll go back to it later tonight and try a few suggestions including yours. I'm beginning to reach the inescapable conclusion (as you suggest yourself) that the drive is gubbed. (Technical jargon)

 

This is just a closing entry to thank all contributors who have sought to solve my USB drive problem. Sadly in this case all (gratefully received) contributions have been unsuccessful. There must come a time when one realises that one is chasing after a dud, and I think that this is one.

Thank you!

 

Did you try this?

 

Sounds like a failed drive tbh. You can try Eldon’s suggestion to be 101% sure.

 

Sorry Eldon, didn't mean to ignore you. I tried plugging the drive into the Samsung Android phone and the phone is no longer recognising it. Talk about flogging a dead horse? It may have been my fault. Some time ago, because FAT32 has a 4 gig limit on files size, I reformatted it to NTFS. I thought I was being terribly clever and it did work for a while.

 

I would have done the same.
Unfortunately it does seem like the drive is dead.

 

Hi plodr,

It's 32gb and it is a "stick" (with two ends to it - USB and mini USB)
I don't know the brand. The outside of it is plain.

I'm no longer going to expend time and energy on this however, I'm grateful for your input. Thank you.