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Fix USB disk undetected or write protected

How many of you guys had this issue at least once? Well, I had this problem yesterday and wanted to share with you the solution for this problem.

We need to open the command prompt in elevated mode (start -> Run -> type cmd but don’t press enter, right click on the cmd and select run as administrator). We need to enter the following commands:

Diskpart
list disk
select disk and the disk number. Please note that the disk size will be shown in MB.
attributes disk clear readonly
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick  (or ntfs). For usb drives with smaller capacity it’s recommended to use fat32. If you want to make a bootable usb format as ntfs.
* wait for the format to finish (100%)
exit

repair usb drive

22 Comments

  1. not format in this process

    • last order replies the following :
      virtual disk service error:
      the media is write protected

  2. Hi

    I tried but showing this error message

    Diskpart has encountered an error: the request could not be performed because of an I/o device error
    See the system event log for more information.

    Please help me out

  3. every step was going smoothly untill I reached the CLEAN command. It shows “the media is write protected. please check the log blah blah…”

    • I had the same with an usb-stick and windows 10. The USB-Stick was formated with an bootable image (ct’ Desinfect 2016).
      I tried this instruction with Windows 10 and I had this problem. I tried Windows 7 and it seems to work, but after using the usb stick with windows 10, I couldn’t access the usb-stick.

      I could solve my problem after using this instruction a third time with windows 10. the clean command had the same error but this time I wait a minute and executed clean once again and miraculous the clean command was successful. Now I can access the USB-Stick…

  4. I tried the instructions abaove. Receive the following error:
    The request could not be performed I/O Device error

    • Open a command prompt with administrator rights and type “chkdsk X: /f” no quotes and replace X with whatever drive letter your USB has.

      • Cant perform Check Disk function as its Write protected…

        • Did you ever find a solution? I have the same message on my comd!

  5. Type in Run window regedit and click OK

    After registry editor Open Goes to the
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Storage Device Policies\
    In the Right Pane Double Click on Write Protect and Type in Value 1
    Write Protection is A

    For Remove Write Protection
    Double Click on Write Protect and Type in Value 0
    write protection will be Removed

    Or Simply Download the Application Called USB Write Protector
    For Enable and Disable USB Port its worked for me.
    from http://www.softlinklabs.com/2013/02/usb-write-protector.html

    Hope this will be useful

  6. Can’t find the storage device policies. What would I do. Hope you help me

  7. after chkdsk g: /s it showing system is RAW

  8. This worked for me! Suddenly my DataTravler G4 32GB decided to not be recognized by Windows. This fix made it work again. Thank you so much!

    • Can you please tell me what you did to solve the issue?

  9. Thanks a lot.. THis worked for me.

  10. when i type chkdsk y:/F It shows a msg known cANNOT OPEN VOLUME FOR direct access. please help me

  11. Hello sir not select disk 1,
    The disk you specified is not valid.
    There is no disk selected
    Plezz help me

  12. works like charm….. run as admin

  13. life saver!!

  14. Hi,

    First of all, I had a suddenly write protection as well on my Kingston Datatraveller G3 64 Gb.
    But I used (on Window 7 64) Minitool Data Recovery first and everything was just right there so I copied some directories with valueble data to another harddrive.
    Than I did some other work and another program stalled and made me restart my laptop.
    So, after reboot I tried to do the same trick with Minitool but it showed nothing. I tried several other things like cloning with Macrinum Reflect but it showed no partition that was formatted, hence no data.
    I surfed around and tried solution as Regedit and so on…useless.
    I watched a movie and as always, the answer came to me…..Recuva….good old Recuva did the job.
    At first it gave errors on non-available data and so on but I pressed several time on Scan and tada….the files became visible in Recuva but more important: in my explorer as well. Now I had the chance to copy all the rest to a save place.
    Now I’m ready to clone the whole partition on the Kingston USB to another partion on another harddrive.
    I have not done this while I’m wrting here but I’m pretty confident it will work since EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition recognizes the USB. Afterward I hope that the USB wil be bootable as it should or else I’ll try to fix it with a bootrepair distro found on Distrowatch,com. Works like a charm to fix Grub and MBR failures.
    So, hope that this post is usefull to you, otherwise you can reach me at [email protected] for questions.

    Kind regards, Peer Gynnt

  15. Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected. how to fix this??? please help!

    i’ve tried everything, including chkdsk.

  16. I made my pendrive bootable in command prompt but after making it bootable it does connect to any pc.Please help me with my problem.

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