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Flash drives set to read-only


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#1
busdriver12

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Greetings,

Yesterday I installed some updates to XP and not soon afterwards my flash drives (when plugged in) have somehow been set to read-only. As these drives are used primarily for backup, I have now lost my main back up source. I've looked at drive properties in various places including:

Start|Administrative Tools|Computer Management|Disk Management

but cannot find where I can reset my flash drives status. When sometimes when I access the drive directly with a file manager (in my case I use Total Commander) I am presented with the following dialog:

Posted Image

Although it infers a HDD problem there are no issues with the Hard Disk. I have a feeling I may need to roll back one or more of the recent updates, but if there is an easier way to reset this I'd appreciate knowing how to. My immediate instinct was to go back to the previous restore point but I'll wait and see if there's a simpler way.

Please note - there are no physical switches on the flash drive(s) to change them to read only, so this is being done by the OS somehow.

TIA for any help

Edited by busdriver12, 11 August 2011 - 03:48 PM.

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#2
Ztruker

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See if this helps: "Flash drive write protection" error appears in Windows XP
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#3
busdriver12

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See if this helps: "Flash drive write protection" error appears in Windows XP


Thanks for the link, however the registry key mentioned does not exist in my registry.
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#4
rshaffer61

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By using 2 different Tech support sites you can run the risk of having conflicting advice given and that can lead to a system being made unusable or unstable. Your other topic is located HERE at WTT forum.
If you would like help from the other site then please request from a Administrator or Moderator that this topic be closed. If you would like GTG to help then please ask for the other topic to be closed. Thank you
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#5
Doug

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Thanks Rshaffer61, I'll close the Thread over at WTT.

busdriver12
You are welcome at WTT.
And of course you are entitled to seek help from as many sources as necessary.

Rshaffer61 is also correct that conflicting advice can cause more problems than benefit from the additional resources.
Many of the same Techs post at both Forum Sites, so you won't be losing out.

Best Regards

Edited by Doug, 12 August 2011 - 01:38 PM.

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#6
rshaffer61

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Thanks Doug and glad I could help. :)
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#7
Ztruker

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Busdriver12. You can try creating a new key under Control called StorageDevicePolicies (exactly as typed). Then create a new DWORD value called WriteProtect and set it to 0.

Reboot and see if the problem is resovled.
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#8
busdriver12

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Busdriver12. You can try creating a new key under Control called StorageDevicePolicies (exactly as typed). Then create a new DWORD value called WriteProtect and set it to 0.

Reboot and see if the problem is resovled.


Partial success.

I have 3 flash drives - 2 8Gb and 1 16Gb. What I did was to combine the data backed up to the 2 8Gb drives onto the 1 16Gb drive to add an extra level of redundancy to my backups. My 8Gb drives are SanDisk and the above fix has worked for them, however the 16Gb drive which still is shwoing up as read only.

Delving a little deeper, I checked the properties tab in the Hardware info for each drive, and the 2 8Gb drives show up as SanDisk Cruzer. The other 16Gb drive shows up as Generic Flash Disk USB Device. I'm not sure if it's related in some way, but this may have something to do with why this drive is unwriteable. Once I get this solved I'd like to be able to figure out how this change was made and what I need to do to prevent it from happening again. Now that my smaller drives are able to be written to I can heave a sigh of relief as I am bit of a back up freak and there was a level of anxiety in getting this problem sorted.

Thanks for all your help so far :)
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#9
Ztruker

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How did you combine the 8s onto the 16 if they all show as read only or write protected? Did you create the registry key and value?

How many USB ports do you have? Do you get the same problem with all of them?

One thing you can try is remove all the USB entries from Device Manager. I've seen that fix weird problems like this.

See here: USB DEVICES - How to delete all (resolves some USB problems), Windows Made Easy
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#10
busdriver12

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How did you combine the 8s onto the 16 if they all show as read only or write protected? Did you create the registry key and value?


I use good old fashioned batch files to copy my files (mostly documents and config files). I did create the registry key and as I mentioned it fixed my 2 smaller drives but not the larger one.

How many USB ports do you have? Do you get the same problem with all of them?


I have 6 - 4 on the rear and 2 on the front - all to no avail. Problem still occurs no matter which USB port I use.

One thing you can try is remove all the USB entries from Device Manager. I've seen that fix weird problems like this.

See here: USB DEVICES - How to delete all (resolves some USB problems), Windows Made Easy


Tried that as well but problem still persisted after driver was re-installed. Thanks for your help - have learnt a few things along the way :)
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