Recently 2 of my Vista laptops will no longer allow me to use my USB flash drives, including my MP3 player. I keep getting the disk is write protected pop-up when I try to move files to or from them. I have been using laptops for my business for many years now and have only had this problem since upgrading to Windows Vista. The thumb drives are NOT the issue. These drives work perfectly fine on the other five computers and laptops I have. They have been tested and work on both XP and Vista - but they just quit working on 2 of my laptops since about a month ago.
Oh, did i mention I have about 8 different thumb drives that all work FINE on other computers.
As I mentioned, these thumb/flash drives work fine on 5 other computers, so I know it is not the drives. Finding a switch on the thumb drive is not the solution - Neither is the formatting.
I am a software student and own a company that uses several computers. I have about 8 USB flash drives.
Please Help :-}
Have your computer reset and reinstall the operating system.. the software is corrupted
SOURCE: Hi ,i having 1GB of flash drive of Transcend
I sense that your usb memory is equipped with a physical write protect switch that you may have overlooked. Locate it, switch to the "non-writeprotected" (unlocked) mode and everything should work normally. Good luck!
SOURCE: flash drive write protected? can't add files
This seems to be the problem of most of us
these days and some of our readers who wanted to know the methods how
they can remove the Write Protected error from their USB drives like Pen Drives and memory cards.
What is Write Protected error and why it happens?
In the Write Protected error, we can’t write or copy any data in our flash drives and even can’t format the drive.
There are many reasons that cause this problem, let’s see solutions of them.
Solutions:
• First of all try to locate a small switch (if any, that you may have not noticed) at some place on the drive or memory card reader. This is the prime reason for this error. If there is one, switch it to the other side to turn the protection off.
• Yes I know this problem is also occurring these days without
this switch but not to worry. Just download this helpful software form here
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool.shtml
and run it to execute a “low-level format” on the drive. This software is quite handy and may take few attempts to actually remove the error.
• The problem can also be caused by some virus activity so just get it scanned by some updated good anti virus which may solve your problem.
• BUT if none of the methods listed above solves your problem then your pen drive might have gone corrupted, so just get it replaced.
Hope any of the methods listed above solves your problem.
Update 1:
After the low level format, you may need to “Partition the drive“.
Dont worry, partitioning a pen drive means allocating it its File
System and Cluster Size that was lost after the Low Level Format.
For that:
Click OK and the drive will be reusable after this.
Update 2 (Better Solution):
Follow the steps in this post and just put the value 0 (zero) in step 5.
This will surely solve your problem now.
rate me and vote me..
2,122 views
Usually answered in minutes!
I FOUND SOLUTION
If your USB Drive does not have a slider or switch
You can use it in other computers
You are running Windows Vista
You get a Write protected message when trying to remove or add things from your thumb drive then follow these instructions:
1) Click Start
2)Type regedit in the search at the bottom of the pop-up and hit enter.
3)Click on the arrow sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
5)Click on the arrow sign next to SYSTEM
6)Click on the arrow sign next to CurrentControlSet
7)Click on the arrow sign next to Control
8)Click on the arrow sign next to StorageDevicePolicies
9)Right click on WriteProtect and click modify.
10)If the value data is 1 change it 0 and click ok.
11)Repeat steps 7 to 10 for ControlSet001, ControlSet002, and ControlSet003 if you have these they will be in a folder just above the Control folder.
12)Close Registry editor and restart the computer.
×