Thursday, November 1, 2018

How to Format a Write-protected USB Flash Drive

Cannot format your USB pen drive because it is write-protected? Get "The disk is write protected" error message while trying to format the flash drive, pen drive or SD card? Some removable storage devices like USB flash drives or pen drive have write protection which is designed to help users prevent unexpected data loss by refusing to delete or format. 

If you’re stuck with a write-protected USB drive that can’t be formatted with "The disk is write protected" error, please don’t worry! Here is a simple way you can try to remove the write protection and format the USB flash drive and pen drive with no hassle. 
 
How to erase and format a write-protected USB flash drive & pen drive using Regedit.exe

Click Start, type Regedit in the search box, click Regedit.exe to open the Registry editor when you see it is displayed at the top of the list. And then navigate to the following key:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Double-click on the WriteProtect value in the right-hand pane of Regedit.exe. Change the Value data from 1 to 0 and click OK to save the change. Close Regedit and restart your computer. Connect your USB flash drive or pen drive again, and you should find the write protection is removed and the device is no longer write protected.

After that, you can now format the drive as normal by right-clicking on it in My Computer and choosing Format. "The disk is write protected" error message will no longer pop up.
Previous Post
Next Post

0 comments: