How To Remove Write Protect from USB Flash Drives

USB Flash Drive

This is a technical blog and I hardly ever write an unrelated article on it. But recently I was dealing with an issue with my USB flash drive which I couldn’t copy any file on it. Actually it had been write protected despite it doesn’t have any write protect key in sides.
I surf all over the web and try more than 10 different solutions to resolve this issue. But none of them worked for me; finally I found the best solution which worked for me.

What’s the problem?

Each USB flash drive has its own Controller (or something like it). This controller install in flash drive whit producer, and it is responsible for accessing flash drive files. (Actually it is something like File System but work differently). Windows or other Operating Systems collaborate with this controller to access files. Those flash drives which own hardware key to control write protection in flash drives, work with this controller.

Some of simple flash drives which don’t have a hardware key, cannot use write protection, but in some cases which Controller corrupts, content of flash drive will be write protect (including my flash drives).

What’s the solution?

According to my search results, some of the producers like HP, provide an application which install flash drives Controller again and resolve the problem. But unfortunately my flash drive wasn’t an HP one, so, what should I do?

My Solution

Get a backup from your flash drive and format it in dismount mode. Dismount mode will remove all of the open handles from the flash drive volume and you can easily ditch the write protection mode. So do the following steps to resolve the issue.

•    Plug flash drive to your PC (with Windows 7)
•    Open Run dialog box (press Win+R)
•    Type CMD and press enter (it will open Command prompt in administration mode)
•    Change current path to your flash drive letter (like G:, D:, K: or whatever your flash drive is)
•    Type this command in your command prompt and press enter

Format   /X   /Q   G:   // (which G: is your flash drive partition)

•    It will ask you for a Drive Name (you can name your flash drive or leave it blank and press enter)
•    Your flash will successfully format, and write protection will remove.
•    If you still have write protection which is unusual event, you can use this command

Format /X G:

This type of format will take a long time and I suggest you to use first command instead of second one.

Hope your issue resolve with one of these commands.