6 Simple Ways To Fix "Write Protected" Error On USB Drive | Tips And Tricks

Yesterday, my friends came to me to get some new games.  I plugged his USB drive and started copying games to USB  drive, and suddenly got an error "The disk is write protected. Remove the write protection or use another disk.", Ohhh Shhiiit, Whhhaat the...?!?!?!?!. How did this happened?

A little search over the internet, and I found these 6 Simple ways to fix write protection error on USB drive. Now you and I are going to see these simple steps to make your USB drive work again as it was before.

1. Option 1 - Scan USB drive for viruses
   
   
   
   
   Scan your USB drive with updated antivirus, whenever you plug it. Because whenever you use it on your friend's or public computers chances are that it might get infected with viruses, which fills it with unnecessary, fake files that will make your USB drive space waste. And because of this, you might get "Write protected" error. So always scan your USB with updated antivirus software.
   
   
2. Option 2 - Make sure the USB drive isn't full
   
   
   
   Sometimes, if your USB drive is full or there is not enough space for a file to copy, you might get the "Write protected" error message. So simply right click on the USB drive in windows explorer and click on properties to check space available and used. And make some space to copy new files.
   
   
3. Option 3 - Make Sure the "File" Isn't Write Protected
   
   
   
   
   
   Some times your ignorence might stop you from getting the solution to a simple problem. If you try to copy read only or write protected file you will get an "Write Protected" error message. So simply right click on the file you are copying, click on properties uncheck the "read only" check box(if checked). Then click on "Apply" and "OK".
   
   
4. Option 4 - diskpart Command line utility
   
   
   
   
   
   If you don't know how to use command line, don't worry, I am going to teach you this one. Simply press Windows key + R, this will open the run dialog. Type "cmd" in that and hit "ENTER". You will see the command prompt or cmd window.
   
   Now, in the cmd window type "diskpart" and hit enter. Again type "list disk", enter. You will see the list of disks available in your system. If your USB drive is not there, this is not of any use.
   
   If it's there, first make sure it your USB drive that you plugged. Now type the command select disk 3, assuming your USB drive is number 3, and hit Enter. Type attributes disk clear readonly and then hit Enter. You have now cleared any Read-Only attribute that might be on that USB drive.
   
   Type "exit" and press enter to exit diskpart utility. Now try unplugging and plugging it again. Still getting the same error???? Try next one.
   
   
5. Option 5 - Advanced Option : Registry
   
   
   
   
   
   If none of the above options helped you, this might. Even if you are not familiar with registry, don't worry, I going to tell you step by step, so just follow me.
   
   Press "Windows key + R", and type "regedit" as it is in the box that appears, hit enter. The Registry Editor will open. Now click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-->>SYSTEM-->>CurrentControlSet-->>Control-->>StorageDevicePolicies and find "WriteProtect" key. If you find it, right click on it and click "Modify".
   
   Now, you’ll probably find that the value for this is set to 1. 1 means “Yes, write protect my USB storage device.” So you can guess that 0 means “No, don’t write protect my USB storage device.” Now change that value to 0 and click on the OK button.
   
   Now close editor, remove USB drive and plug it again, it should work. If not then Last and Final Option.
   
   
6. Option 6 - Format USB Drive
   
   
   
   
   
   This is the last option that remains. But be careful as it may cause data loss on your USB drive. Before formatting check the file system of your USB drive, you can do so by right clicking and clicking on properties. If it's FAT32 we are going to format the USB drive using FAT32 and if it's NTFS we are going to format it with NTFS.
   
   Now to format it, right click on USB drive and click "Format". Now choose the file system option that we checked previously, what it was(NTFS/FAT32). Now choose the Allocation Unit Size 64KB if your USB drive is bigger than 1GB or leave it intact. Now uncheck the "Quick Format" box if it's checked. Click on "Start" to format, it will take from few seconds to 1-2 minutes depending on the size of files on the drive. And Finally your USB drive is formatted, cleaned and ready to use.
   
   

If your USB drive is having hardware problem then formatting process will give an error message. So these option will not help you at all. So go for hardware solution over the internet.

If you face any problem with the above option, Don't hesitate to leave a comment.