How to Disable Write Protection From USB

What is write protection?
- Write Protection is a feature(yes you read it right) that is generally found in flash drives like pen drives and memory card. It prohibits users to write anything to the drive, thus protect the drive from any modification to its data and also stops virus(from computer) to Copy(write) itself to the drive. 

Initially, it was done using a small physical (hard)switch located in the Pendrive and memory card. The small yellow switch in this snap is for write protection. Similar, switch is used in any side of some pendrives.

Now, this feature is also being achieved digitally without any Hardware.

Why is it a problem then?
-it is a Problem when:
  a) we don't know about it and it prohibits us from writing
  b) it is (digitally) implemented without user consent either by someone or by Virus

Solution

First of all, make sure if there is any physical Switch is present or not, if it is then adjust it to unlock side.
If there is no physical switch or still problem persists, Go ahead.

As many a times it is done by virus also, it is suggested to scan your system including pendrive with a good updated Antivirus, if you don't have any then Download and install MalwareBytes, update it and do the scan.


Method I : Using Diskpart


First we will try to remove read only attribute from the specific drive.

Warning : Be sure to do this on the right disk since the diskpart command can do serious damage if you run it on the wrong disk.

1)  Start Menu -> Run(or in search box) -> Type 'cmd' -> press 'Enter' -> Command Promt will open
2) Type 'Diskpart' -> enter ->  'list disk' -> enter
3) Select the disk you are going to modify, if your required USB disk is in 'disk 4' then  
4) type 'select disk 4' -> enter , now disk 4 is selected,  'list disk' will show star(*) beside it 
5) 'list disk' -> enter 
To Clear the Read-Only attribute on the selected disk (To Disable write protection): 
6) Type 'attributes disk clear readonly' -> enter
The disk is no longer Write protected. The Read-Only attribute is removed.

If you wish to set the write protection again, just do the same procedure and
Type 'attributes disk set readonly' -> enter

When you are done modifying the disk attributes just issue the exit command
7) Type 'exit' -> enter

If files inside USB drive are still in read only mode
-open command prompt
-Type ' j: ' -> enter (put your drive label in place of 'j' )
- Type ' attrib -r /s /d *.* ' -> enter
- exit


Method II : Using RegEdit


This will Remove write protection from USB Drives. If it doesn't then lets disable writeprotect from your System Using Registry Editor:

1) Start Menu -> Run(or in search box) -> Type 'regedit' -> press 'Enter' -> Registry Editor will open
2) Expand by clicking ' + ' and Navigate to the following path :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

If you can't find  'StorageDevicePolicies', then you have to create the key:
-Right click on ' control '-> New -> Key -> a new key will get created -> rename it as 'StorageDevicePolicies'
-Right click on 'StorageDevicePolicies' 
-> New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value -> Name it as 'WriteProtect'

Now if you want to enable write protection, use ' 3) ' , to Disable write protection, use ' 4) '

3)To Enable Write protect, Double click on 'WriteProtect', and set its value data to '1'
Once set, all users on the computer is now blocked and prevented from copying, transferring or writing any files, documents and data to the USB disk drives.

4)To Disable Write protect, Double click on 'WriteProtect', and set its value data to '0'
Once reset to '0', all users on the computer is now allowed to copy, transfer or write any file, document and data to the USB disk drives.

5)close your registry edit window.

For first time, you may get that same message again, close the notification window and try to write to the USB again and it should work. You’ll probably have to do this with all your USB drives to clear that “Disk is write protected” message. Hope this helped.

If still same problem then You have to go for Formatting it.

Method III : Using Formatting

Using 1st two is simple.

For using  Apacer Formatting Utility, 
Unzip this utility to preferably on a folder on desktop for easy access (Do Not Save it on pen drive).
Keep your pen drive plugged in
Double click on the 'Start.bat' file in the folder where you unzipped the above utility.
This will start formatting your pen drive, wait till the formatting completes and the LED on your pen drive stops blinking.
Remove your pen drive and plug it in again.


If you still face same problem, go to service center. If you have warranty left then replace your pendrive.

Happy Computing :)

How to Break Windows 7 Password from Safe Mode

Windows password is very important to protect our personal data. Login password is the first line of defense against those who want to gain access to our computer. Windows 7 allows you to have multiple accounts, all of which can have a different password. If you forgot the password for one of the accounts and the machine inaccessible, you can log into Windows Safe Mode to break Windows 7 password, which has proved to be as the best way for breaking Administrator password in Windows 7.

Here is How to Break Up Windows 7 Computer Password from Safe Mode

Suppose you forgot the password for Mosoh(Windows 7 login) account, you can log into safe mode with the Built-in Administrator account to gain control or get pass inputting a password in the Admin screen. The steps are available in all Windows 7 editions like Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise, etc. Here is how to break Windows 7 password from Safe Mode.

1. Start or restart your computer and press "F8" while the computer boots up. The Advanced Boot Options screen appears.

2. Use the arrow keys to highlight the "Safe Mode" and press "Enter." Your computer starts in Safe Mode.

3. Click on the "Administrator" account that appears on the Windows logon screen. This account default need no password, if you've ever set an Build-in Administrator password, please enter it instead of leaving the "Password" field blank.

4. Click on "Start" and "Control Panel".

5. You will enter "All Control Panel Items", then click User Accounts"

6. Then choose the account which you want to reset the password, and click "Change your password" as following.

7. Type a new password for that account.

Finally you will successfully reset the account(Mosoh) password, now restart your computer to get out of safe mode, you can enter that account with the new password.

Also see this to reset password with cmd

Reset Windows 7 Password Using Cmd

Forgot Windows 7 password? Or, did someone else who used your computer change the login password? In both cases, you’re helpless if you do not have any Windows 7 password reset disk. The only option left for you is to install the operating system again. As it requires formatting, you’ll loose all your data saved at your hard disk. This article is about How to reset windows 7 password without reinstalling the OS.


How to Reset Windows 7 Password

Power on the computer and the Windows 7 should start. When it displays “Starting Windows” long press the power button to force the system shutdown. Windows 7 will treat this as a start up fault and try to recover from the error. Don’t worry! We’re moving rightly according to our planning.

Step One: Restart your computer and you should get into the Error Recovery window. Select the ‘Launch Startup Repair (Recommended)’ option and hit ‘Enter’.

The startup repair wizard appears and the system starts checking for the problem.

Step Two: As there is no real problem, it can’t find any solution and suggests to use system restore. But, we are not going to use it. Click the ‘Cancel’ button.

Step Three: The Windows 7 attempts to repair the problems automatically. This takes several minutes. So, wait and wait. As there is no problem, Windows will end up with a message stating that “Startup Repair cannot repair this computer automatically”. Now click the button as shown in the picture below to view the problem details.

Step Four: Scroll down to the end of the problem details section and click the link to read the local privacy statement as shown in the picture.

This opens the local privacy statement into a notepad document. You’re not going to read the privacy statement any way. What you need is to search and open some system files using the notepad.

Step Five: Select File > Open from the notepad menu bar.

Step Six: The ‘Open’ dialog window appears. Select ‘Local Disk’ from the ‘Look in’ drop-down menu.

Step Seven: Now go to the Windows > System32 folder and change the file type to ‘All Files’.

Step Eight: Find out the file named as sethc, select it and press the F2 key to rename the file. Give the name as sethc_bak.

Step Nine: Similarly, search for the application file named cmd at the same location. Once found, right-click on it and select ‘Copy’. Now, right-click on an empty space and select ‘Paste’. Another file named as cmd – Copy is created at the same location.

Step Ten: Rename the file ‘cmd – Copy’ to sethc.

Step Eleven: Once done, cancel all the opened windows and finally click the ‘Finish’ button at the ‘Startup Repair’ dialog window.

Step Twelve: Your computer will reboot as usual and the log-in screen will appear. Press the ‘Shift’ key for five times. Voila! The command prompt opens without getting logged into the system. Now you can use this command prompt to reset Windows 7 password.

Reset Windows 7 Password using the Command Prompt

Now you are a step away from resetting the password in Windows 7. At first run the following command to see the exact user names at the computer.

net user

This will show the list of users in the computer. Choose the username for which you want to reset the password.

Now run the following command to reset the password.

net user <user_name> *

Replace the <user_name> with your own. Type your new password and retype it to confirm.

You’ve successfully reset Windows 7 password without any Windows 7 password reset disk. You can now log into the Windows 7 system with the user name and the new password.

Note: After logging in, you would want to get back the original sethc file. Repeat Step One to Step Seven, delete the “sethc” file and rename “sethc_bak” to “sethc”. It will not make any change into the Windows 7 password reset task.