Sometimes while trying to copy data into the Pen drive, there will be a warning message saying..
“This disk is write protected. Remove the write protection or use another disk”
People becomes panic after seeing this, because they didn’t set any protection mechanism. Number of reasons leads to this sort of problems. “Computer Era” will explain in detail.
Malware Infection
Malware infection is the major culprit for pen drive write protection errors. According to their design various malware works in different ways. Some malware programs create shortcuts in the root folder of the removable drive. The original data becomes unusable because of these shortcuts.
Another set of malware works differently. They took control of the pen drive and denies file copying process. Even though we didn’t enabled any write protection on those removable drives, we always fails to copy data into those drives. In this context, whenever you encountered write protection errors, it’s best idea to scan entire pen drive for malware infection with powerful Internet Security suites like Norton, BitDefender, Kaspersky, Panda etc.
Write protection Lock
If you spend few bucks extra while purchasing pen drive, there will be a write protection lock either side of the drive. You can observe it in the below image. People who spends on public computers like internet cafes generally require write protection models to avoid viral infection. Whatever the case, if you toggled the write protection same “This disk is write protected. Remove the write protection or use another disk” warning message will be displayed on the screen. So before blaming other reasons check once to get rid of the issue.
Free Space Issues
Sometimes when your pen dive doesn’t have sufficient space to store data it blindly display “disk write protection” error instead of “not enough space” message. So it’s betteer to have a look on the free space through Windows Explorer and free it up certain extent to copy additional data.
Is the file read-only?
While copying certain files people usually face write protection errors. If this is your case, check the file system properties of those files. In Windows right click on the file, then select “Properties”. Immediately “properties” dialog box for the file appears on the screen. Here disable “read-only” radio button if it is there.
Above are the common reasons for removable drive write protection errors. So examine the situation and find out the exact reason to troubleshoot.