How to remove write protection for your pendrive

One of my friends asked me for a solution to remove write protection to his pendrive. If you look in Wikipedia about ‘write protection’, it says “Write protection is any physical mechanism that prevents modification or erasure of valuable data on a device. Most commercial software, audio and video is sold pre-protected.” It is ok with audio and video on CD/DVDs, but why pendrives too? I know you are been tickled with same question in mind. ‘Data in any storage device that is removable can be write protected.’ I summarized the fact for my self when I got the same question in my mind.

The problem my friend got is when he tried to access the USB device, it showed the ‘write protected’ error message.

I suggested him a simple procedure that solved his problem and brought him back his pendrive. Lets take a look at that process.

Removal Process:

Step 1: Press ‘Windows+R’ and then type ‘regedit’. Windows registry editor will be opened.

Step 2: Navigate to the following path ‘KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies’

Step 3: Double click the key ‘WriteProtect’ in the right pane and set the value to '0' in the Value Data Box and press ‘OK’ button.

Step 4: Remove your USB device from your computer and restart the system if needed.

Step 5: Insert your USB device again and check if it shows the same ‘write protected’ message.

You must have solved your problem by step 5. If you still think the problem isn’t solved, continue to the following process.

Step 6: Open the ‘regedit’ and navigate to the following path ‘KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies’.

Step 7: Remove the ‘WriteProtect’ key and exit the registry editor.

Check now! It must be solved! Comment below if you still face any problem.

Must follow advice: Make a backup of your registry before you make changes to it. Click here to know how to make backup of your registry.
Read this if you want to get your data back from your flash device!