The virus has protected the flash drive from being written to, what should I do? How to remove write protection from a flash drive

The era of floppy disks is long gone, but sometimes when trying to write to a flash drive, the user may encounter a situation known since the days of using floppy media - it is blocked and cannot be used.

We will look at how to solve this problem in detail in our article today.

So, you need to write some information to a flash drive, you insert it and receive a message like “The disk is write-protected, remove the protection or use another one.”

This problem can be solved quite quickly, and we will talk about this a little later, but now we should say a few words about the purpose of installing protection from downloading on .

Note! This operation is performed for only one purpose - which can spontaneously be copied to removable media without the user’s knowledge.

Methods for removing write protection from a flash drive

There are 2 key ways to remove protection from a flash drive: hardware and software.

The hardware solution is to install a lock switch, which is present in some drive models, as well as SD cards.

Most often, the toggle switch is located on the side edge of the drive.

Carefully inspect your existing drive and look for an open/closed lock icon or the word Lock on it.

Note! Removing the lock is very simple - just move the lock lever in the opposite direction. That's all. Insert the media into the appropriate slot and repeat the file writing operation again.

The software solution involves the interaction of a flash drive controller, which is responsible for the ability to record information.

You can remove write protection using this method using the command line of the Registry Editor or Local Group Policy.

Learn more about all of the above methods.

Removing protection using regedit

1. Click “Start” and enter - in the search field. Right-click (RMB) on the program and in the context menu go to the “Run as administrator” item.

2. Go to the StorageDevicePolicies section:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

Important! Important! If there is no such thing, you will have to create it. To do this, click on the section Control - New - Section. We call it “StorageDevicePolicies” without quotes. If there is no such section, you need to create it.

Create (RMB in the right column of the registry) a DWORD parameter (32 bits) in the created branch. For convenience, let's call the element WriteProtect.

3. Make sure that the WriteProtect value is 0. Right-click on WriteProtect and select “Change”. If the value is “1” you need to change it to “0” and click “Ok”.

4. Close the registry editor, remove the media and restart the computer. Insert the flash drive. Now the flash drive works as usual, allowing you to write files.

Removing protection using Diskpart

If we were unable to unlock using regedit, let's try to do it using the Diskpart command interpreter, which allows you to manage the commands that the user enters into the command line when working with partitions and disks.

1. “Start”, enter the name - cmd - in the search field. Right-click in the program and select “Run as administrator” in the context menu.

2. Now you should enter the commands: diskpart and list disk, and after entering each of them, press the Enter key.

3. In the list above, determine what serial number in the name the flash drive has.

This can be done based on the specified size, in our case an 8 GB flash drive, presented in the table as “Disk 1” with a capacity of 7441 MB.

4. Select the disk with the “select” command, clear the attributes that allow only reading “attributes disk clear readonly”.

If, you should enter the following commands: “clean”, create a partition “create partition primary”, format it in NTFS “format fs = ntfs” or FAT “format fs = fat”.

Removing protection using the Local Group Policy Editor

1. Open it by pressing the Win + R key combination, after which you should enter the command gpedit.msc and press “OK” or Enter.

Hello dear visitors. Yesterday they asked me a question: what should I do? I can’t transfer a large file to a flash drive? The system says that there is not enough disk space, but there is enough space on the flash drive. It was necessary to copy a movie of about 9 GB in size to a 16 GB flash drive. If you think logically, then everything should fit, but the system refused to put such a large file on a flash drive and that’s it.

I knew what was going on, and while I was explaining what needed to be done, a bright thought appeared in my head that I should write about this on a blog, so I’m actually writing it :). Let's first explain why large files, or to be precise, files larger than 4 GB do not want to be written to the flash drive and a message appears that there is not enough disk space.

The fact is that when you buy a flash drive, it is already formatted in the file system FAT32, and the file system is FAT32 does not support files larger than 4 GB. Here's the thing, it's very simple. We need to change the file system of the flash drive from FAT32 to NTFS. Because the NTFS file system supports, if I'm not mistaken, files up to 16 GB.

This question is becoming more and more relevant every day, because the size of memory on flash drives is growing and they are becoming cheaper every day. You can already buy a 16 GB flash drive for the same money that a year ago you could only buy a 4 GB one.

We just need to change the file system of our flash drive from FAT32 to NTFS. I will now write two ways in which this can be done.

Format the flash drive to the NTFS file system

I have already written about how. But I think it wouldn’t hurt to repeat it again and pay special attention to the fact that we are formatting it into an NTFS system.

Attention! Formatting a flash drive will destroy all information on it. Make sure that your flash drive does not contain the files you need. If there are, then copy them to your computer.

We connect the flash drive to the computer, wait until the computer recognizes it, go to "My computer" and right-click on our flash drive, select "Format".

A window will open in which we need to select the NTFS file system, select and click “Start”. We agree to the system warning.

After the formatting process is completed, you will receive a blank flash drive with the NTFS file system, onto which you can copy large files.

Converting a flash drive to NTFS for writing large files

The second method is to simply convert the flash drive to NTFS, this method essentially differs from the first, only in that the files you have on the flash drive will not be lost. But I still advise you not to risk it and copy the necessary files to your computer.

Our flash drive is connected and recognized by the computer. We go to “Start”, "All programs", “Standard” and select “Run”. Or just press Win+R. A window will open in which we write the command cmd and click “Ok”.

A window will open in which we need to enter a command to convert the flash drive to NTFS:

convert k : /fs:ntfs /nosecurity /x

Where k is the letter that the computer assigned to your flash drive, go to "My computer" and see what letter you have. Enter this command and press “Enter”.

Once completed, a report will appear:

How to transfer a large file to a flash drive? Converting a flash drive to the NTFS file system. updated: December 27, 2012 by: admin

Hello dear readers! Quite recently I encountered one problem, I wanted to reinstall Windows, I found a sandisk cruzer 8gb flash drive, recorded the image and just took it out of the computer, everything was as usual, I reinstalled Windows and decided to format the flash drive, but when I tried to format it, I got the error “the disk is protected from records. Remove the protection and try again.”, when copying files from a computer to a USB flash drive, I got the error “the disk is write-protected.”

I started looking for the cause of this problem, searching on the Internet what could be the problem with this error, I came to the conclusion that the reasons for the “write protection” error could be the following:

• The file system of the usb drive was broken - this is precisely due to the fact that we ignore the message about “safely removing the device” (because of this, my flash drive broke down, sandisk usb drives become unusable because of this). – In my opinion, this is the most common reason.
• The flash drive was infected with viruses.
• Damage to the USB drive itself. It fell somewhere, got wet and shorted out, or you hit it hard, etc.
• Also, the most common reason is a special switch on the flash card, which protects against unauthorized writing to your USB drive.

So, we have figured out the reasons, now I will describe methods that will help you remove write protection. Before you begin, inspect your flash drive for a switch. If you find such a switch, then move it up or down depending on the model of the flash drive; on usb flash drives there is usually an open lock, if it is not drawn, then logically, just move it in the opposite direction. On flash cards that use adapters, this is usually micro-SD, then move the slider to the very top of the adapter or in the opposite direction from the “Lock” inscription.

How to remove write protection from a SanDisk flash drive

is a universal utility that fits almost any USB drive and microSD flash cards using adapters. Download the program and run the exe file (the program does not require installation). After launch, the program itself will detect your device. Then simply select the file system type and click the “Start” button. (downloads: 7303)

Advice! If the flash drive has a capacity of up to 4GB, then select the “FAT32” file system; in other cases, select “NTFS”.

How to remove write protection from Transcend, JetFlash and A-DATA flash drives

How to remove write protection from an Apacer flash drive and a Phison controller

Apacer 8 Repair Utility - A set of eight programs for formatting Apacer Handy Steno flash drive and other models. (downloads: 1929)

AH320_Utility_LFormat
Handy Steno AH320
HS2.0_Utility_FDU1.20
Handy Steno AH123
HS20_LFormat
HS20_RepairTool
Repair_V2.8.1.1

Repair_v2.9.0.4
Handy Steno AH161 plus, Handy Steno AH221
Handy Steno AH222, Handy Steno AH223
Handy Steno AH225, Handy Steno AH321
Handy Steno AH322, Handy Steno AH323
Handy Steno AH326

Repair_v2.9.1.1
Handy Steno AH123, Handy Steno AH124
Handy Steno AH125, Handy Steno AH160
Handy Steno AH220, Handy Steno AH320
Handy Steno HC202, Handy Steno HC212
Handy Steno HA202, Handy Steno HN202
Handy Steno HN212, Handy Steno HT202
Handy Steno HT203 200X, Handy Steno HS120

Repair_v2.9.1.8A
Handy Steno AH522 200X
These flash drives mainly use Phison controllers. Some utilities do not work under Windows 7.

How to recover a flash drive and remove protection from Silicon Power

This program is specially created for restoring Silicon Power USB drives, it works perfectly with interfaces 2.0 and 3.0, and is suitable for any silicon power flash drive. (downloads: 3718)

1. Check your USB drive for viruses with various antivirus programs.
2. Change the USB port, it happens that the port may be damaged and not enough energy is supplied to the flash drive from the computer.
3. Check your USB drive for security switches.

Well, that seems to be all the advice that will help you remove protection from a flash drive or restore its functionality.

I hope these tips help you. Thank you for your attention!

Best regards, Dmitry Arsenyev

Nowadays, more and more people prefer to use a flash drive to store information. But what if you want to write a document to it, but instead a message appears: “You do not have access to the target folder” or “You do not have permission to save files.” Let's start figuring out how to remove protection from a flash drive. (How to put a password on a flash drive)

Move the switch

First, check to see if there is a small mechanical switch on the flash drive. If it is present, check that it is not in the “Lock” position - in this case, the flash drive is write protected. We put the switch in the open position and everything should work.

If there is no such switch on the flash drive, we move on to more radical methods.

Using the command line

Using this method will allow you to remove protection from the flash drive and save information on it, and working with the command line is not difficult.

In the Start menu, enter “cmd” in the search field and open the command line at the top.

Now, in place of the cursor, enter the Diskpart command and press “Enter”.

Now you need to check which disk number corresponds to the flash drive. You can check the memory capacity of the flash drive. For me this is Disc 2. Remember the number “2” and move on.

In the command line, enter Select Disk 2, you put the number that you defined above, and press “Enter”.

To exit Diskpart, write exit – “Enter”. Close the command line window.

Now you need to restart your computer, and then try to write something to the USB flash drive.

Using formatting

This method will easily restore the functionality of your flash drive, but you should use it only if you don’t mind losing the information stored on it. We will perform formatting not using operating system tools, but using the utility hard disk low level format tool.

The program will do "deep formatting"– that is, at the physical level, each memory cell will be remagnetized and they will be assigned “0”. Zeros are also assigned to those cells that are responsible for protection.

Download a program to remove protection from a flash drive and install it on your computer (download hard disk low lewel format tool), connect the flash drive that we will format to the computer. We run the program as administrator. In the next window, select the device that needs to be formatted. Click “Continue”.

Then you can format the flash drive using the operating system. As a result, all data is erased, and you can copy files to a flash drive, change them, and rename them.

I also advise you to read the article:. It describes four more ways to solve this issue.

Use one of the methods to remove protection from a flash drive and start using it 100%.

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