Enabling/disabling write protect on a USB flash drive

Sometimes when you try to copy data from a USB drive a small window pops up telling you this device is right protected

Write protection means that the disk is protected against write operations. This means you can’t write on the disk. You are only allowed to read and copy data from that disk, but unable to write or delete any content of that disk.
Write protect was created to prevent a flash drive from virus attack or unauthorized access to the device, To create write protect on your USB first plug it to your computer

• Press window key + R to open the run box
• On the run box type "regedit" then enter
• on the registry window navigate to this path

              HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\SYSTEM\current control\control

• Create a new key and name it "storage device policies"
• Select storage device policies right click it select new DWORD value and rename it "write protect"
• Set its value to 1

Your device will now be right protected,
To revert the changes set its value to 0 then the write protection will be disabled.


You can also do this by using command prompt

• Plug your USB to a computer and run command prompt as an administrator
• to enable write protect type this command replacing device name with the name of your USB

                   $ rmformat -w enable device name

• To disable write protect type this command

                  $ rmformat -w disable device name

• To verify whether  the media is write protected or not

                  $ rmformat -p device name