Remove Write Protection on USB Drive & Memory Cards

Many times using your portable devices you get errors like the disk is write protected like in the image on the right hand side. So this can happen anytime due to virus attacks or anything can be the cause. So recently I got main from one of my reader named soundararajan so he was asking that his 2GB card has become write protected so what he can do, well there are two ways you can try to remove its write protection so check them below.

Firstly I will recommend checking for any physical lock on that card or USB, because many times company’s provide a lock write attached to the card for making it write protected, so check that up make sure its off and than also if you are not able to copy stuff to your card than follow below methods

Removing Write Protection Using Registry Editor :

Well this is most preferred way of removing write protection as it does not include any formatting of disk or memory card. So you just have to manipulate a .reg key and that’s it.

1. Open Registry Editor by navigating to Star Menu > Run ( on windows 7 search for Run in start Menu ) now type “regedit” and you will see your Registry Editor opened.

2. Now Navigate to the following path :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Now if you are not able to see the StorageDevicePolicies than no problem just download this .Reg File and double click on it, now restart your computer and you will have Storage DevicePolicies.

3. Now double click on the WriteProtect and make its value 0 and than click OK.

4. Now just close registry editor and restart your computer for changes to take effect, now plug your memory card or USB in and enjoy non write protected memory card.

Removing Write Protection Using Apacer Formatting Utility :

Now if you are not able to remove write protection from your Memory Cards or USB Drives using the above method than you can go for Apacer Formatting method which simply works quit good.

Now this method needs your card or USB Drive to be formatted so make sure that you have copied all the data from your USB Drive to your computer, now follow steps from below and have fun.

1. Download Apacer Formatting Utility to your computer, make sure its not kept inside the USB Drive just keep it anywhere outside where you can remember.

2. Now extract it and than plug your pen drive or memory card in to your computer and than double click on the Start.bat file present inside the folder you just downloaded. Now this step will start formatting your drive or card so let it do its work till you figure out that formatting is done.

3. Now try checking out if your card has been free from the write protection, well this will surely do its job and you can enjoy copying any files or folders to your drive.

So now these two methods will help you in fixing your USB Drive or Memory Card easily, but still if you are unable to remove write protection from your drive than their might be some hardware problem or something, make sure to contact your retailer and get it replaced.