NOTE: If the drive is corrupt or inaccessible, skip to Step 5 and immediately use a data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery to get back data from the RAW drive and safeguard it from further damage.īefore proceeding with any fix, we need to figure out if the affected hard drive is corrupt.

How to Remove Write Protection from USB Drive or Hard Drive in Windowsįollowing these steps to remove write protection from your hard disk or USB drive in Windows. To make it usable, you must remove write protection from the hard drive. Alteration in registry or permissions by user or malware/virusĪ write-protected hard drive allows you to access the data in it (if the drive is not corrupt), but you cannot write or paste new files and folders, which makes the drive literally unusable.But before you head to solutions, here are a few common reasons that enable write protection on a hard drive: Thus, if an external hard drive or internal drive volume becomes write protected, you need to rely on Windows troubleshooting steps to remove the write protection. Numerous queries on Google on how to remove write protection from hard drive explain that situation can be creepy.

However, unlike SD cards, there is no such switch to enable or disable write-protection in a hard drive. Write-protection on SD card and some thumb drives can be turned ON or OFF by using an attached physical switch.

How to Remove Write Protection from Hard Drive: The Conclusion.

How to Remove Write Protection from USB Drive or Hard Drive in Windows.

Remove the hard drive