Besides, normal read or write actions can't be done to bad sectors, thus you may need to seek help from disk verifying tools. The disk might be old and just reaches its natural lifespan, as many disks have limitations on the amount of reading and writing data. If causes mentioned above can't account for your case, it is likely your removable disk is broken or gets bad sectors. Virus can infects everywhere data exists and cause various issues such as data damage, file loss, system crash, storage device failure, etc. In that case, you need to navigate to file Properties to check whether the "Read-only" option is selected.
If you set files or folders on existing on the drive to "Read Only", you'll receive this error message when copying, editing or replacing files. You need to remove such settings by modifying settings in registry. Some computer uses or administrator of the machine set security setting on computer to prevent actions to write data to a USB disk. You can right-click on the disk and choose Properties to check how much free space available on the drive.
If the flash drive is full of files and does not have free space and it is likely to be write-protected. The switch is used to set write protect and makes the drive read only. Many memory cards and USB flash drives have a small physical switch on the side edge. This error may appear for several reasons and this section lists the most common ones.
Can you help me on the write protection removal thing on Windows 10 computer or retrieve data?" I just want to copy files from the USB disk to computer and then reformat it. I found a solution for windows XP and tried on my own computer. I have four USB flash drives and one of them is now marked 'write-protected' for no reason, as I didn't do anything to it. "I recently bought a new laptop that installs Windows 10. Let's look at a real case found from a forum: Thus you need to disable or remove write-protection from USB disk first. What's worse, if files on that drive are important to you, formatting won't be a wise choice, for formatting wipes data. In that case, the error "The disk is write protected" will drive you crazy, as you can't access data on that USB drive and the only option to fix it might be format write-protected USB complete, which won't be an easy job. However, this feature may become a headache if it is not properly used or USB drive is corrupted. Remove the write-protection or use another disk." as shown in the picture below. When you try to write data to such disk you'll get error message "The disk is write-protected. Another reason people only give readable access to their storage device is to prevent others from sharing content stored on the disk. All attempts related to writing action will be prevented, such as add or create new file, edit existing data, delete files that already present, formatting current USB disk, etc. In that case, any action to add or edit data into that disk will be denied. When a USB disk is write-protected, it turns into read-only.
External data storage devices are very common devices and they are widely used these days, as they are portable and users can take them anywhere they want. Write protection on USB flash drives or SD cards is a handy function aiming to prevent accidental file deletion and block suspicious files like virus and un-authorized sources.
Steps to recover data from write-protected flash drive
How to recover data from write-protected flash drive? Solution 7: Format the disk write-protected disk Solution 6: Ensure your USB drive is free from virus Solution 5: Make sure the USB drive isn't full Solution 3: Use Command Prompt to remove write protection
Solution 2: Disable write protection in Registry Solution 1: Check the drive for a physical lock
How to remove write protection from read-only USB drive? How to add write protect to a flash drive?