Windows 10: Enable or Disable Disk Write Protection in Windows

How to: Enable or Disable Disk Write Protection in Windows

How to Enable or Disable Write Protection for a Disk Drive in Windows


Write protection (read-only) on a disk prevents the contents on the disk from being changed.

There are many reasons for how a disk is write protected.

This tutorial will show you different ways to enable or disable write protection for a hard drive, memory card, or USB drive for all users in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to be able to do the options below.

*note You will not be able to write protect the Windows drive.

*Warning When a USB flash gives a This drive is write protected error and there is no physical switch to turn on/off write protection, the USB flash drive may have failed. The write protected error is an attempt to protect from data loss, so you can copy the contents from the USB flash drive to another storage location. In this situation, nothing can be done for the USB flash drive. It's dead.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: Enable or Disable Write Protection for USB Drive or Memory Card with Physical Switch
• Option Two: Enable or Disable Write Access for All Removable Disks in Group Policy
• Option Three: Enable or Disable Write Protection for Disk using Diskpart Command
• Option Four: Enable or Disable Write Protection for USB Drives using a REG file
• Option Five: Allow or Deny Write Access to Removable Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Group Policy
• Option Six: Allow or Deny Write Access to Fixed Data Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Group Policy

EXAMPLE: "The disk is write-protected." error message
*note This is the usual error message a user will get when trying to format or write (ex: copy) something to a write-protected disk.







EXAMPLE: Error 0x8000FFFF: Catastrophic failure
*note This is an error message a user will get when trying to create a new folder on a write protected disk in Windows 10.









OPTION ONE [/i] Enable or Disable Write Protection for USB Drive or Memory Card with Physical Switch

*note Some USB flash drives and memory cards have a physical switch that allows you to lock or unlock write-protection for it. The location of a switch (if available) on a USB flash drive will vary.

If locked, this will override any other option below, and the device will be write protected on all PCs you connect it to until unlocked.
1. Examine the USB flash drive or memory card for a switch like below. If available, you can move the switch to the locked or unlocked position to enable or disable write protection for the device.












OPTION TWO [/i] Enable or Disable Write Access for All Removable Disks in Group Policy

*note This option is only applied when removable disks are connected to the PC that the policy is set on.
1. For how, see: How to Deny or Allow Read and Write Access to Removable Hard Drives in Windows





OPTION THREE [/i] Enable or Disable Write Protection for Disk using Diskpart Command

*note This option is only applied when removable disks are connected to the PC that the policy is set on.

See also: My Disk is Read-only, Help! | Ask the Core Team
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. In the elevated command prompt, type diskpart, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)

3. In the elevated command prompt, type list disk, and press Enter. Make note of the disk # (ex: disk 1) for the disk you want to enable or disable write protection for.

4. In the elevated command prompt, type the command below, and press Enter.
select disk #

*note Substitute # in the command above with the actual disk # from step 3.

For example: select disk 1
5. Do step 6 (enable) or step 7 (disable) below for what you would like to do.


6. To Enable Write Protection for the Disk
A) In the elevated command prompt, copy and paste the command below, press Enter, and go to step 8 below.

*Arrow attributes disk set readonly





7. To Disable Write Protection for the Disk
*note This is the default setting.
A) In the elevated command prompt, copy and paste the command below, press Enter, and go to step 8 below.

*Arrow attributes disk clear readonly




8. When successfully finished, you can close the elevated command prompt if you like.





OPTION FOUR [/i] Enable or Disable Write Protection for USB Drives using a REG file
*note The downloadable .reg files below will add and modify the DWORD value in the registry key below.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

WriteProtect DWORD

(delete) or 0 = Disable (default)
1 = Enable


1. Do step 2 (enable) or step 3 (disable) below for what you would like to do.


2. To Enable Write Protection for USB Drives
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Enable_Write_Protection_to_USB_drives.reg

Download

3. To Disable Write Protection for USB Drives
*note This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Disable_Write_Protection_to_USB_drives.reg

Download

4. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6. When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7. Restart the computer to apply.

8. You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.





OPTION FIVE [/i] Allow or Deny Write Access to Removable Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Group Policy
1. For how, see: Allow or Deny Write Access to Removable Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Windows





OPTION SIX [/i] Allow or Deny Write Access to Fixed Data Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Group Policy
1. For how, see: Allow or Deny Write Access to Fixed Data Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Windows

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• Allow or Deny Write Access to Removable Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Windows
• How to Turn On or Off Write Protection for Removable Drives in Windows 10
• How to Set or Unset Read-only Attribute of Files and Folders in Windows 10
• Allow or Deny Write Access to Fixed Data Drives not Protected by BitLocker in Windows
• How to Enable or Disable Access to All Removable Storage Devices in Windows

:)

 

Enable or Disable Disk Write Protection in Windows  


Hmmm... list disk doesn't see the hdd in a usb external holder. Thats the one I need to fix so its cleared of read only.

edit: It does show under file explorer as drive E: Here is a screen shot.

 

Enable or Disable Disk Write Protection in Windows  


Did you click on one of the links below instead?

 

Enable or Disable Disk Write Protection in Windows  


Aha ! Disk Management shows them both with the same size. Diskpart does to. But there aren't the same total size... that is why I found the Diskpart to be confusing. So I did clear the readonly.

Here is a screenshot.

 

Write protection enabled for my Local Discs other than C drive

Hi Hemanth,



Follow the steps below to disable write protection on the computer and check if it helps in resolving the issue.

• Press Windows logo + X keys on the keyboard and select
  Command Prompt (Admin) from the context menu.
• Type diskpart and press Enter key on the keyboard.
  
• After the command is executed, type list disk and press
  Enter key on the keyboard. On performing list disk command, number of disks in the computer will be displayed in the
  Command prompt window.
• Type select disk followed by the disk number (ex:
  select disk 1) and press Enter key on the keyboard.
  
• Type attributes disk clear readonly and press
  Enter key on the keyboard. On performing attributes disk clear readonly command, the drive selected will be disabled from write protection settings enabled on the computer.

Write to us with the status of disabling write protection of a system drive on the computer
in the same post for further assistance. Your reply is most important for us to ensure we assist you accordingly.



Thank you.

 

How To Format A Write Protected Flash Memory ?

¿You already tried this one?...

Run CMD


1. diskpart
2. list disk

Then in the 3º step, put the correct number of disk in the list for the usb flash (if it's listed in disk 3, then you'll have to write select disk 3).

2. select disk #
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

with that commands you will format the flash drive in fat32, if you have a large drive you can select also "format fs=ntfs" in step 7.

good luck!