How to remove usb flash drives’ write-protection?
U disk is short for “USB flash disk”. It’s a kind of miniature, high capacity removable device which uses USB interface and doesn’t require a physical driver. It connects with the PC via a USB port. U disk write-protection means you can’t save modified files. This tactic is specially designed to prevent virus attacks. However, it’s a different concept from read-only. You can delete read-only files but you can’t remove files on a write-protected disk.
Tools:
A normally operating USB flash drive
A PC
System software
Software reviews:
1. Usbmon 4.0 analyses system processes and monitor real-time the flash disk viruses. It’s freeware designed to remove USB disk viruses and is available on the Internet. It’s easy-to-use. Please click here to have a look at the solution for “usbmon.exe”.
2. Other software that perform similar functions include HP U disk formatting tool, HPUSBFW, Mformat, etc.
Format
1. Take out important documents from your USB flash drive to keep it empty, so that your important documents won’t get lost.
2. Right-click the USB flash disk, and choose “Format” in the menu.
3. Do not choose “Quick Format” option, just leave it alone to format slowly.
4. Click “Start” to run the format. How long you will wait depend on your USB flash disk capacity and your own data wire quality along with the version of USB socket. For example, it may take a few minutes for a 8G USB flash drive. How about yours? You can do the estimation in reference to this.
5. After it’s done, please see if the write-protection is dismantled. If not, don’t worry, please try out the following method.
Please check and update the driver program
1. There’s very few probability on this, but we’ll still have a look at it.
2. Right-click on “my computer”, choose Properties–>Hardware–>Device Manager–>Universal serial bus controller. Please check if the items are functioning properly. If not, please upgrade the driver of the relevant item.
Registry recover
1. If the USB drive is still not usable after formatting and upgrading the driver program. Please try it on another PC.
2. Click “Start”–>”Run” from the left-bottom corner of desktop, type in “regedit”.
3. Go to the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet002Control and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMControlSet001Control and see if there is sub key “StorageDevicePolicies” in either of them. If there is, please check the value for “WriteProtect”, change it to zero, and jump to step 5 of this tutorial. If there isn’t “WriteProtect” item, please continue.
4. If you are ok with the first 2 steps, pay attention here. Please check in the registry for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlStorageDevicePolicies. If there not such item as “StorageDevicePolicies”, right click on Control to create a new item and name it “StorageDevicePolicies”. Create a new DWARD value in the white vacancy on the right, name it “WriteProtect”, .and assign it zero value.
5. Now restart your computer and see if it’s alright. If not, please read along.
Change file system
1. The disk file systems in the old days are all FAT32, due to limitations in technology. Now let’s change it into the latest NTFS.
2. Connect your USB flash drive to PC, it shows up as the last one, right?
3. Let’s say, it’s H:.
1> Please press the Win+R key and type in cmd.exe, enter. You can also select “Command Line” from the attachments menu.
2> Use convert command, but you can’t use it in the current working disk partition. So please use it under other disk name, like D:.
3> Please type in convert H: /fs:ntfs /nosecurity /x
4. This method is for emergency. 5.
5. If problem occurs again after restart, you can continue with following guidance:
Right click on the flash disk, Choose “Properties”, you’ll see the tab “Hardware”.
6. Choose “Properties”–>”Policies”. Choose the manufacturer. Different manufacturer is represented in different company names, models, characters. Please check the option as illustrated in the following picture.
Problem solved. I configured it well in the first 2 steps, but you can try the “Change policy” method listed here before you begin to convert the file system.
7. If you haven’t made it after passing thru all these steps, please buy another Kinston, it’s affordable anyway.
PLEASE NOTE:
1. Check the switch on USB flash drive to see if it’s open. It’s similar to floppy disks in the old times.
Each time you format it, all the data in the USB flash disk is cleared away, and the capacity of device shrinks a little. Our methods listed above does not work for all types of USB flash drive, esp for the inferior brands. It’s for reference only. The methods may not even work for every device in one brand, they are electrical stuff anyway.