How to Disable Write Protection on Hard Drive

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How to Disable Write Protection on Hard Drive
 

Write-protected drives are locked; users can't delete or change the files on a write-protected hard drive, nor can they format the device. If you attempt to modify a device that's been write-protected, a message such as "This Disk Is Write-Protected. Remove the Write-Protection or Use Another Disk" will appear. Disk-related errors can be a huge source of frustration for a business, particularly if the drive contains critical files or backup data, but you can easily disable write-protection via command line to re-enable access to the drive.

Step 1
Click Start. Type "cmd" into the search box.
Press "Enter" to load the Command Prompt.

Step 2
Type: diskpart
into the command-line program and then press "Enter" to run DiskPart.

Step 3
Execute the following command to see the list of available volumes on the PC:
list disk

Step 4
Type:
select disk
and replace "" with the number assigned to the target hard drive. Press "Enter."

Step 5
Execute the following command to turn off write-protection:
attributes disk clear readonly

Close Command Prompt when the process completes.

Tip
Some drives, particularly USB flash drives, have a physical write-protection mechanism or switch on the drive itself. Push the mechanism into the "Off" position to disable write-protection.