Windows 10: Removable USB Drive Showing as Read only in Disk Management but not in DiskPart

So about a year ago I made this drive into a recovery drive. However, the last time my computer had an issue that would require this drive, it didn't show up as a recovery drive when plugged in. I have decided that I would like to reuse this drive however when I attempted to format it, it said it was write-protected. I have tried numerous things that I have found online to try to remove this and none of them worked. I tried one strategy which involved the use of diskpart. Now if I check diskpart, it says the drive does not have the attribute read-only, but if I check in Disk Management it says the drive is Read-only. The Drive doesn't even show up when I check under devices and drives in This PC. Is there anything I can do?

:)

 

Disk showing in Disk Management, But not DiskPart

Hello!

So, today I was doing a friend a favor, he had an old 1TB hard drive with important photos on it. He said he would appreciate it if I could move the photos to a different hard drive.

So, I hooked it up to my self-built PC (with a SATA port) and it didn't show up in file explorer.

So, I checked Disk Management to see if it would show up there, and it did. I later realized why it didn't show up in file explorer (Because it didn't have a drive letter). In Disk Management, I right clicked the primary partition only to find that it wouldn't
let me assign a drive letter.

I remembered there was another way to assign drive letters, with DiskPart. So I typed this into Command Prompt:

diskpart > list volume

In DiskPart, It showed the drive's EFI system partition (partition 1) but not the (Healthy) Primary Partition (partition 2).

Also in DiskPart, I could type "list disk" and it would show me the 1TB drive, if I then typed "list partition" it would show me the different partitions, but wouldn't let me assign a drive letter to them.

In summary, Disk Management showed the partition, but wouldn't assign a drive letter. DiskPart showed the partition 1, but not the primary partition.

My objective is to show the photos located on the 1TB drive's 2nd partition without erasing it.

I would be happy to add pictures if necessary.

Thanks!

 

Disk Management Shows USB Drive but All Tasks are Grayed Out

Hi Chris,

I realize the inconvenience you are facing with Diskpart. I will certainly help you.

I appreciate your efforts in troubleshooting the USB drive.

Please follow the below steps:

• Check if you see USB drive in file explorer.
• If yes, please refer to the below link to create a recovery media:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...3a5-a286-9e98f886d490/create-a-recovery-drive

If the issue still persists, try repairing the USB disk and check if it helps.
Follow the below steps:

• Press Windows logo key + X key and select
  Command prompt (Admin).
• Type diskpart and hit Enter.
• Type list disk and hit Enter.
• Repair the USB by type command repair disk= disk no. (Ex, if USB disk show at 3 then type repair disk=3)

After repairing the disk try creating system recovery drive again and check if it helps

Please reach back to us, if you still face difficulty with Diskpart. We will be happy to help you.

Thank you.

 

help. USB drive isn't assigned a drive letter.

Any usb flash drive I plug into my computer isn't assigned a drive letter. The physical drive shows in the "safely remove hardware" but it doesnt show up in disk management. I have tried to populate the volume thru the safely remove hardware properties window and it does pop up in the list but it doesn't stay there. This isn't a format or assign a letter problem. It's more complicated then that. Maybe one of the services needed for usb drive management was disabled? Suggestions needed. btw external usb harddrives work fine.