I'm having trouble with my USB drive because it's write-protected. I can't format it or access my files. Does anyone have a solution for getting past this issue?
3 Answers
Unfortunately, it sounds like your USB drive might be dead. Flash drives don’t really have a proper write-protect mode like other media. When they fail, they often lock themselves into read-only mode, which looks like a write protection issue to the OS. It might be time to get a new one.
Try formatting it via the command prompt instead of just right-clicking and using the standard format option. Just Google 'format write protected flash drive using command prompt' for a step-by-step guide.
You’re likely facing a common issue where flash storage goes into read-only mode as it degrades. Try to recover any data you can from it and look into replacing the drive.
That's true for most cases! Sometimes, though, USB drives can be write-locked through their firmware—it's rare, but it can happen, especially with drives that manage licensing for specific software. I've only seen it once or twice myself.