Over the years, one annoying issue I’ve encountered on Windows XP, Vista and 7 is the media write protection error.
You will be fine if suddenly you are unable to write files to your local hard drive, external drive, USB drive, or SD card.
Typical error messages you receive about this:
Media is write protected Disk is write protected
Unfortunately, Windows does not have a clear cause for this error, making it difficult to fix! Add to that the fact that this error message usually has nothing to do with ownership or permissions and is really confusing for people.
The most common solution I’ve seen for this error is to try and take ownership of all write protected files, folders or drives.
You don’t want to do this! In 99 cases out of 100, the resolution on the disk did not change. Instead, the problem is with Windows or third-party software.
Before trying to take ownership or change permissions, try the following solutions and see if they work for you.
Diskpart
Using the built-in Diskpart tool that comes with Windows, you can check if the disk or volume is configured as read-only. If so, you can use diskpart to remove the read-only property.
First open a command prompt and type diskpart. You will be taken to the diskpart prompt.
Now enter volume list or disk list to view a list of disks and partitions on your computer.
Now you need to select a volume or disk to check if it is read-only or not. If I wanted to select drive C (boot drive), I would type select volume 2.
Now enter the volume attributes to see the various volume attributes. One of them is read-only.
As you can see from the above, this volume is not read-only. Also note that when you enter a volume list or drive list, the Info tab will tell you if the drive is removable or not.
Finally, to remove the read-only flag on a disk or volume, enter the following command after you have selected the appropriate volume or disk:
volume attributes clear read-only disk attributes clear read-only
Note that this usually fixes the problem on Windows, but may not stay in place after a reboot. This can happen if the disk is again read-only by some other program or OS. Read other solutions if they don’t work for you.
Update hard disk drivers
If you are running 64-bit Windows and have multiple hard drives with AHCI enabled, you may experience this problem.
Your best bet is to download the latest drivers for your hard drives (SATA / RAID Controller) and any hard drive controllers.
If you’re having this issue with a NAS device connected to your computer via eSata, updating your drivers should fix your problem.
Check the registry key
If your system has recently been infected with a virus or spyware, malware may have changed a registry key, making any device connected to your computer write-protected.
Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following section:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control StorageDevicePolicies
If the StorageDevicePolicies key does not exist, create it manually. You can do this by right-clicking on the Control key and choosing New – Key. In the right window, double-click WriteProtect and set the value to 0.
If WriteProtect does not exist, right-click the new StorageDevicePolicies key and select New – Dword.
Disable backup and antivirus software
Depending on which backup or anti-virus software you are using, your disk or volume may be configured as read-only by the software installed on your system. Sometimes these programs can mistakenly protect a volume or disk from writing.
Avira antivirus software is one example. If it detects a virus and cannot remove it from the USB drive, it can proceed and write-protect the drive by itself!
MBR repair
In some cases, the MBR on the disk can be damaged, resulting in the disk being read-only. If it’s an external drive, you can still run FixMBR using a free utility.
If you need to fix the MBR on the drive that Windows is installed on, you can follow the instructions from my Help Desk Geek blog to run the FixMBR command
If you need to run it on any other drive, for example an external one, download this utility from here:
http: //vvv.synt.no/mbrfix
You can use the following command to repair the MBR on a disk:
Mbrfix / drive {disk number} fixmbr {/ vista | / win7}
system recovery
The last option is to perform a System Restore if you recently installed new software or installed a new update for your system. Try going back to a restore point that was earlier than when you had the problem and see if that solves the problem.
You can read our previous article on how to recover your computer using System Restore.
That’s all the solutions I could think of for the media, this is a write protect error! If you find another solution, please post it here! Enjoy!
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