You can view and copy files only when your USB device or SD card has write protection enabled. Therefore, if you try to write or delete files on a storage device, Windows displays an error message saying ‘The disk is write-protected’. Luckily, Windows 11 makes it easy to remove write protection from your USB drive or SD card.
Such restrictions will not prevent you from formatting a storage device or modifying its contents. Below, we share three easy methods to disable write protection for your USB drives and SD cards on Windows 11. So let’s take a look.
1. How to remove write protection with a physical switch on your device
Select USB drives and SD cards include a physical switch that allows you to quickly toggle read-only mode. This provides a convenient way to enable or disable write protection for your storage device.
If your USB drive or SD card has a physical switch for write protection, set that switch to the unlocked or disabled position. However, if your device lacks such a switch, you can use the DiskPart or Registry Editor command to remove the write protection.
2. How to remove write protection with DiskPart . command
DiskPart is a useful command-line utility that allows you to manage your internal and external storage devices. With Diskpart, you can perform some advanced disk management tasks that are not available in the Disk Management utility. This includes the ability to remove write protection from your storage device.
Step 1: Right-click on the Start icon and select Terminal (Admin) from the Power User menu.
Step 2: Select Yes when the User Account Control (UAC) prompt appears.
Step 3: In the console, type the following command and press Enter to access the DiskPart utility.
disc part
Step 4: Type the following command and press Enter to see the list of storage devices on your PC.
disc list
Step 5: Note the disk number associated with the storage device for which you want to remove write protection. Then type the following command and press Enter to select it.
Select disc FEMALE
Replace N in the above command with the real number associated with the disk.
Step 6: Paste the following command and press Enter to remove write protection for the selected device:
Disk properties are explicitly read-only
You will see a ‘Drive properties removed successfully’ message once the process is complete. To verify you can run the following command and check the Read Only property for your drive.
properties disk
If you want to enable write protection for your USB drive or SD card, repeat the steps above and enter this command instead:
read-only disk attribute set
3. How to remove write protection through Registry Editor
If you feel adventurous, you can remove write protection for your storage devices through Registry Editor. Unlike DiskPart, this method allows you to disable write protection for all removable storage devices on your PC in one go.
Making incorrect changes to the registry file can render your computer inoperable. Therefore, following the steps carefully and backing up all registry files in advance is very important. Alternatively, you can also create a system restore point.
Once you’ve done that, use the following steps to remove write protection through Registry Editor.
Step 1: Press the Windows + R key combination to open the Run dialog box. Type re-edit in the box and press Enter.
Step 2: When the User Account Control (UAC) message appears, select Yes to continue.
Step 3: Paste the following path into the address bar at the top and press Enter.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control
Step 4: Right-click the Control key, go to New and select Key from the submenu. Name it StorageDevicePolicies.
Step 5: Right-click the StorageDevicePolicies key, navigate to New and select DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it WriteProtect.
Step 6: Double-click the newly created DWORD and enter 0 in the Value data field. Then, click OK.
Restart your PC afterwards for the changes to take effect. To re-enable write protection for your storage devices, repeat the steps above and set WriteProtect DWORD to 1.
No more restrictions
One of the solutions above will help remove write protection from your USB drive or SD card, allowing you to use it again. However, if the above methods don’t work, there may be a problem with your storage device. In that case, you may have to replace it.
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
