June 24, 2018 15:13 pm

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How to Write-Protect Your USB Flash Drive

Write Protect USB

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Many a time, it becomes necessary for us to write protect our USB flash drive so as to protect it from viruses and other malware programs. As flash drives are so popular and most widely used to move data between computers, they are the prime target for attackers as a means to get infections spread around the computer world. Also, since USB drive is not a Read-Only Memory (ROM), the data inside it can easily be modified or deleted by malware programs.

But unfortunately, most of the new flash drives do not come with a write-protect feature as the manufacturers wish to cut down the cost of production. Hence, the only way to write-protect your USB flash drives is to enable this feature on your own computer.

Steps to Write-Protect Your USB Drive:

This can be done by adding a small entry to the Windows registry which acts as a switch that can be enabled to make use of the write protection or disabled to allow write access. Here we go:

  1. Open the Registry Editor (Open the “Run” dialog box, type regedit and hit “Enter”).

  2. Navigate to the following Registry key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\

  3. Create a New Key named as StorageDevicePolicies. To do this, right-click on Control, again click on New -> Key and name it as StorageDevicePolicies.

  4. Now right-click on  StorageDevicePolicies and create a New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it as WriteProtect.

    Write-Protect USB Drive

  5. Double-click on WriteProtect and set the Value data to 1.

    Now the right-protection for USB drives is enabled on your computer (no restart required) and thus it would not be possible for anyone or any program to add/delete the contents from your USB flash drive. Any attempt to copy or download the files onto the USB drive will result in the following error message being displayed.

    USB-Write Protect Error

To revert and remove the write-protection, all you need to do is just change the Value data for WriteProtect (Step-5) from 1 back to 0. Now write access to all the USB devices is re-enabled.

Sometimes it may seem difficult to remember and follow the above mentioned steps each time you want to enable/disable the write protection. Hence as an alternative way, there are many tools available to automatically enable/disable the write-protection feature. One of my favorite tool is USB Write Protect by Naresh Manadhar.

Using this tool, you can limit write access to your USB drives with just a click of a button. You can download this tool from the following link:

USBWriteProtect

I hope you've now understood how to enable or disable write-protection of USB devices on your computer.

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Comments

    • @ Ankit Das

      You need to run the application as an administrator (Right-click on the software and select “Run as administrator”). Only then it should be able to enable/disable the write-protect feature.

    • please help
      dear shrkant follow you step Run command “How to Install Windows 7 From a USB Drive” and my pen drive or corrupted sow… or not formatted pen drive… show please help me
      how to formatted pen drive

  2. Yes it’s good but how to learn such things. Mainly focus on about registry and how to clean that and what’s the other use of that and how to that what to edit in registry.

  3. hi am a bca student and u r the best, i want to desable my task mngr, my document and control pannel and command promt plz guide my self

    • @ Sumeet Kukreja

      Yes! It works only on your computer. For other computers, you need to first enable the write protection before inserting the USB drive.

  6. Yes it’s good but how to learn such things. Mainly focus on about registry and how to clean that and what’s the other use of that and how to know for different different things that what to edit in registry.

  8. awesome !!
    which college are you from , and from where did you get these info …
    and how do understand every term of os.
    m a noob , want 2 be pro.
    well thanx really appreciated … : )

  10. thanx …: )
    dude r u ethical hacker or something ???
    u r like “indian adrino lamo” ,,./../
    well keep up the good work … !!!

  12. hello shrikanth
    this is a good one post
    but my question is IS THERE ANY PROGRAM WHICH CAN LOCK USB LIKE A folder lock WHICH REQUIRE PASSWORD WHILE CONNECTING IN EVERY COMPUTER
    .

  22. Hello, this protection is getting reflected on my computer only. If we want to secure our USB flash drive from reading and writing to other system then wats the procedure??

    • i want people to see the data/video audio in the thumb drive, but they should not copy that to other System/devices. how can i do this ?

  27. after doing above steps will it possible for a virus to enter my PC’s Hard Disk
    after opening USB drive

  28. Thi i really great thing. Thank a lot 4 thi tech. If u have more idea of virsu so,pl. tell m……. Thanx…….

  29. Hello Sir,

    I’m reading your posts since 3 (or more years , don’t remember exactly) years. You are an inspiration for me. I started learning Programming languages after completing my 12th two years back.
    Right now, I have created hundreds of .Net Applications and games editing tools (for GTA) written on C#.I’m working on a talking sensible robo.
    All the credits goes to you and I would to express my thanks to you for sharing these wonderful thoughts and post.^_^

  30. Hi,Srikant
    can u please tell what will happen if i install windows update.
    I am using windows 7

  32. …? My Regedit isn’t working, it says: “Registry editing has been disabled by your administrator.” Even though i opened it again, by using “Run as administrator” it still gives me the same pop-up message, and won’t let me access it!! Help!! How do i enable it??!!??

    • @ RYME

      I suspect your PC to have a virus/malware infection. Perform a full system virus scan and see if it helps!!!

  37. Hey dude my pendrive is already write protect but its not a re enable so how can i do to re enable my pendrive plz tell me dude

  39. well i wana to instal xp wid the help of usb device….will u help me ??? i shall be highly thankful to u 😉

  44. but this technique only make the flash drive protected in users(my) computer..but it’s not protected when it’s used in others pcs..is’nt it?and its nt alwys possible to edit d registry of others pc..so how can this bug be fixed???

  49. i think this will work for me only… if someone use my pendrive he can easily use / write to my pendrive

  50. hey can u please tell us how can we remove this write protection ?? by mistake my pendrive is write protected and i want to remve that protection

  51. Hi guys,

    Here is my challenge: After setting the write protect on my external hard drive, i figured i could copy files and folder from the hard drive to my computer but i couldn’t copy anything from my computer to my hard drive.

    Here is what i really want: I want that i shouldn’t be able to copy anything from my external hard drive to my computer. Thus, the reverse of the challenge stated above.

    Please help me as this is urgent. Need to get this done for a client for some bucks. Y’all know what i mean. Lol!!!

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