How to Format Write Protected SD Card | 6 Best & Free Ways To Do It

Hello, Are you looking for a reliable way to format a write-protected SD card, USB, or external hard drive? When you get a “The disk is write protected” error while formatting the SD card, don’t worry you will be able to solve it after reading the full article.

Table of Content

Step 1 – How to Remove Write Protection from SD Card – 6 Easy Ways
1. Use SD Card Physical Switch
2. Run AntiVirus Software
3. Run CMD Command
4. Use CMD Alternative Tool
5. Run Registry Editor
6. Take Device for Repair
Step 2 – How to Format Write Protected SD Card after Write Protection Removal
1. Causes of SD Card Write-Protected Error
2. Fix SD Card Write Protected Error Is Possible, Start Here Now

Follow this page, you’ll learn how to remove write protect from SD card and format it to usable again on your own.

How to Format Write Protected SD Card & What is write Protection.

If your SD card is becomes write-protected, you cannot write any new data to the card, delete files on it or format it. SD card becomes unavailable and whenever you tried to format the SD card, Windows says the card is write-protected. “How can you format the write-protected SD card? “

How to format write protected Sd Card Steps — Write protected notification while formatting Pen Drive / Sd Card

Quick Fix for Write Protection Removal on SD Card:

Unplug and re-plug the SD card.
Switch the USB port, and change an SD card adapter.
Reconnect the SD Card to a new computer.
Check if the SD card is accessible.

Note :

If the SD card becomes accessible, Great. And If it’s still write-protected, then follow the best & easy 6 solutions mentioned in Part 1 to access it. You’ll be able to solve this issue successfully.
After this process, if your SD card becomes accessible, then back-up all data first. Then formatting it to a secure state as mentioned in Part 2.

Step 1. How to Remove Write Protection from SD Card – 6 Easy Ways

Hope one of 6 ways can release your worries, removing write protection from your SD card on Windows 10/8/7successfully:

1. Remove Write Protection on Locked SD Card with Physical Switch

If there is a physical write-protection switch on the side of an SD card, you can remove write protection on the locked SD card using its physical switch.

Here are the steps to unlock SD card which is write-protected :

Step 1. Unplug your SD card from the PC and find the physical switch.
Step 2. If the switch is on the lock side, switch it from ON to OFF to unlock the SD card. After this, the write protection should be turned off.

Step 3. Reconnect the SD card to your computer and see if you can access files saved on the card.

If your SD card doesn’t have a switch Or it is still write-protected after unlocking the card, then follow the below mentioned steps.

2. Remove Write Protection from SD Card with Anti-Virus Software.

Sometimes unknown viruses or malwares may encrypt your device, adds write protection to it. This disallows you to fetch the saved data.

The most efficient solution is to run antivirus software, removing write protection viruses from your memory SD card. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Download and run anti-virus software on your computer. Recommended antivirus software: Norton Antivirus, McAfee, ESET NOD32, Avast, AVG, etc.
Step 2. Insert or keep the SD card connected to your PC.
Step 3. Run anti-virus software to scan the SD card, cleaning up and removing the write protection virus.

3. Manually Remove Write Protection from SD Card using cmd Command line

When a storage device becomes Read-only, it’s a state of write-protected error. The only way out is to clear the read-only state with the command line, making the device re-writable again.

Follow the steps carefully to remove write protection from your device:

Step 1. Connect your SD card to the computer first.

Step 2. Press Win+R key, then type cmd in the Run dialog and then click “OK” to open the cmd prompt.

Step 4. Type diskpart and hit Enter.4. Type the following command and hit Enter each time:

list disk
select disk # (# is the number of your write-protected SD card.)
attributes disk clear readonly

Wait for the process to complete and close Diskpart. After this, you will be able to access your data again.

4. Fix SD Card Write-Protected Error using cmd Alternative Tool

If you are not professional in computing devices and not familiar with command lines, don’t worry. EaseUS has a kit for helping you resolve the write-protection issue on SD Card, USB, or on your hard drive, etc., devices.

EaseUS Tools M is a practical computer fixing tool & it is safe and light-weighted. It’s a perfect alternative to the command line.

Use this one-click tool to solve the write-protection issues on your own:

Step 1 : Download and Install Ease-US Tools M for free & easily.
Step 2 : Open EaseUs Tools M on your PC. Then choose Write Protection mode in the software.
Step 3 : Select the device which is “Write-Protected”. Then click Disable to remove the protection from the device.

5. Remove SD Card Write Protection using Registry Editor

Clear write protection can be performed through Registry Editor. The Operating System may go down with any false operation performed on it.

Follow the detailed steps below, be very careful to remove SD card write protection with Registry Editor:

Step 1. Type regedit in the Search bar and press Enter. Click “Yes” to open the Registry Editor.

How to format write protected Sd Card CMD line

Step 2. Go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.
Step 3. Locate StorageDevicePolicies.
Step 4. If you can’t find the StorageDevicePolices folder, create one. Right-click on “Control” > Click “New” > “Key”, name it as “StorageDevicePolicies”.

Step 5. Right-click on StorageDevicePolicies and click “New” > “DWORD Value”. Name it as “WriteProtect”.
Step 6. Double-click on “WriteProtect” and change the Value Data to “0” and then click “OK.”
Step 7. Close the “Registry Editor” and restart the PC.

After this, re-insert the memory stick into your computer, you shall be able to access the card by then.

6. Unlock Write Protected SD Card with Decryption Software or Take It for Repair

When your SD card gets encrypted or locked due to third-party software or it is physically damaged, there are two ways that you can try:

Run decryption software to unlock the write-protected SD card.
Take the inaccessible or physically damaged SD card to a local repair center.

Step 2. How to Format Write Protected SD Card after Write Protection Removal

Here are two things that you should do after removing write protection from your SD card:

Open SD card and save valuable files to another location. If not accessible, let data recovery software help.
To obtain a secure circumstance for storing data, format the write protected SD card.

Here, you’ll need a professional SD card formatting tool for help. EaseUS Partition Master Free with its powerful partition management feature can help. Free Download Windows 10/8/7

With it, you can format SD card, Memory card, USB or any external hard drive after removing write protection in a few simple steps.

Step 1. Double click & Launch EaseUS Partition Master, Right Click the partition on your external USB/HDD/SD card which you want to format and choose the “Format” option.

Step 2. Assign a new partition label of file system type NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3. Also, apply cluster size to the selected partition then click “OK”.

Step 3. In the Warning window, click “OK” to continue.

Step 4. Then Click on the “Execute Operation” button in the topleft corner to review the changes. After it click “Apply” to start formatting your external HDD/USB/SD card.

After the operation, you can use the SD card to save or transfer files again.

Causes of SD Card Write-Protected Error

According to Wikipedia, write protection is a physical mechanism that prevents users from modifying or erasing valuable data on a storage device. It means when a storage device is write-protected, any operations on it, will be rejected.

Here are the main causes of SD card write-protected error:

SD card or memory card is locked
SD card gets encrypted by virus or malware
If SD card has bad sectors or internal file system (See: How to check file system)
If SD card is locked by third-party write-protection software
Physical damage

After getting the details of causes, you can also try to protect your storage devices from these errors. For example, turning off the lock switch, running antivirus, setting proper file system, etc.

Fix SD Card Write Protected Error Is Possible, Start Here Now

This page offers 6 fixes to help you remove write protection from a write protected SD card on your own. The provided methods can also be applied to remove write protection on USB, internal, or external hard drive effectively.

Note that, after removing write protection from your device, you should set a proper file system to your SD card, USB, or hard drives. Consider FAT32 for SD smaller than 32GB Sd card and exFAT for SD larger than 64GB Sd card. EaseUS Partition Master can help. Free Download Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista/XP

With it, you can easily manage SD card on your own. Such as resizing partition, formatting SD card to FAT32, converting RAW to NTFS, etc. Fixing and formatting a write protected SD card is possible, go and start the process here now.