How to Remove Read-Only Attribute from Pendrives

Earlier we posted about how to make any pendrive read-only. Such a read-only pendrive is protected against any kind of write operations. For example, you cannot copy files on it, you cannot delete files from it and you cannot modify files that exist on it. One advantage of having a read-only drive is that nobody can modify the contents on it without taking a few extra steps using special software.

But if you want to make it read-write again so that you can both read and write data on it, then you can follow a number of easy steps. For this all you need is an elevated command prompt or Windows PowerShell (Admin). These steps also show you the current read-only status for any USB pendrive.

Here is how it is done:

1. Click on Start in the taskbar and type cmd an wait. When the search results are displayed, choose Run as administrator for Command Prompt. This will open an elevated command prompt window.
2. In the command prompt window, enter the command diskpart, then list disk and it will show the disks available. Notice the disk number for your pendrive.
3. If your pendrive disk number is 1, then type select disk 1.
4. In order to check the read only status type attributes disk and press Enter. If it shows Read-Only : Yes then it is read only.
5. To remove the read-only status of the pendrive, we can give command attributes disk clear readonly to make it read-write. We can repeat the step 5 to check the read only status. This time it should show Read-Only : No.
6. Type exit to leave diskpart tool. Close the command prompt window.

You can repeat these steps for any pendrive for which you want to remove the read-only attribute. But this will not work for special pendrives that have a write-protect switch or in-built encryption.