Hello all
While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the
USB disk was Read Only.
There is no hardware switch on the stick for read only.
I was unable to format the stick and chkdsk also did not work because of the write protection.
After searching the internet I tried DiskPart, ie.
list disk
select disk ... (usb stick)
attributes disk
I was then told readonly was No, bur the Current Read-only state was Yes

I have also tried
1. Edit registry
navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.
I did not have this key so as suggested I created it.
Add new DWORD value WriteProtect and set the value to 0
The next instruction was to Click the "Write Protection" icon, and set the "Value data" to 0.
followed by restarting the machine.
I did this but it made no difference.
2. Followed the suggestion of using AOMEI Partitiion Assistant to format the stick. Unable to do so
because Write Protected.

It is not really a big deal to me because I can always throw the stick away, but I would like to
know if there is anything else I could have tried, whether anyone else has had this problem
and how they solved it, if they did, what may have caused it and if it is preventable.
Any advice gratefully received

--
remove fred before emailing

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 03/29/2026 1:25 PM, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all
While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the
USB disk was Read Only.
There is no hardware switch on the stick for read only.
I was unable to format the stick and chkdsk also did not work because of the write protection.
After searching the internet I tried DiskPart, ie.
list disk
select disk ... (usb stick)
attributes disk
I was then told readonly was No, bur the Current Read-only state was Yes

I have also tried
1. Edit registry
navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.
I did not have this key so as suggested I created it.
Add new DWORD value WriteProtect and set the value to 0
The next instruction was to Click the "Write Protection" icon, and set the "Value data" to 0.
followed by restarting the machine.
I did this but it made no difference.
2. Followed the suggestion of using AOMEI Partitiion Assistant to format the stick. Unable to do so
because Write Protected.

It is not really a big deal to me because I can always throw the stick away, but I would like to
know if there is anything else I could have tried, whether anyone else has had this problem
and how they solved it, if they did, what may have caused it and if it is preventable.
Any advice gratefully received

You say stick, and I don't know what your definition of a stick is.
Plastic enclosed thumb drive, etc.

Or a card. On most cards there is a nearly invisible sliding switch no
the edge of the card. In one position it is read only in the other it
is read /write.

My daughter has handled cards for years and did not know the switch
existed.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 3/29/2026 7:25 PM, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all
While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the
USB disk was Read Only.

https://www.zhihu.com/en/answer/141062854

|| Regardless of USB flash drives or other flash storage devices, the internal || storage chips are NAND Flash chips; the erasing and writing cycles of flash || chips are limited, with SLC typically having about 10,000 cycles, and MLC/TLC
|| having fewer; therefore, some flash blocks must be reserved as backups to
|| perform firmware wear leveling, data merging, and garbage collection, in order
|| to minimize bad blocks and extend the lifespan. When the number of bad blocks
|| exceeds a certain threshold, wear leveling and other operations cannot proceed
|| normally, and the device will become read-only.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 3/29/2026 1:25 PM, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all
While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the
USB disk was Read Only.
There is no hardware switch on the stick for read only.
I was unable to format the stick and chkdsk also did not work because of the write protection.
After searching the internet I tried DiskPart, ie.
list disk
select disk ... (usb stick)
attributes disk
I was then told readonly was No, bur the Current Read-only state was Yes

I have also tried
1. Edit registry
navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.
I did not have this key so as suggested I created it.
Add new DWORD value WriteProtect and set the value to 0
The next instruction was to Click the "Write Protection" icon, and set the "Value data" to 0.
followed by restarting the machine.
I did this but it made no difference.
2. Followed the suggestion of using AOMEI Partitiion Assistant to format the stick. Unable to do so
because Write Protected.

It is not really a big deal to me because I can always throw the stick away, but I would like to
know if there is anything else I could have tried, whether anyone else has had this problem
and how they solved it, if they did, what may have caused it and if it is preventable.
Any advice gratefully received

The "diskpart" and "attributes" was your best hope.

You could try it on Linux, then if the stick worked, you
would suspect it "could be fixed" on Windows (somehow).

If it is read-only on Linux, then it could be that the
controller has placed it in that mode because it has
run out of spares.

Since it is read-only, you could do a benchmark. If
the benchmark is only 2MB/sec, then it might be
some sort of "health problem".

While flash chips have had individual metadata controls
for things like this, it's unlikely to be the root cause
of your problem. There might have been some NOR flash with
segment-level write protect bits. But if these things
were correctly programmed at the factory, they are
unlikely to change (unless some firmware did it).

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:25:22 +0100, scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net>
wrote:

Hello all
While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the
USB disk was Read Only.

What happens if you try the same key on another PC?

--
Ci sono 10 tipi di persone al mondo: quelle che capiscono il sistema binario
e quelle che non lo capiscono.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:25:22 +0100, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all
While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the
USB disk was Read Only.
There is no hardware switch on the stick for read only.
I was unable to format the stick and chkdsk also did not work because of the write protection.
After searching the internet I tried DiskPart, ie.
list disk
select disk ... (usb stick)
attributes disk
I was then told readonly was No, bur the Current Read-only state was Yes

I have also tried
1. Edit registry
navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.
I did not have this key so as suggested I created it.
Add new DWORD value WriteProtect and set the value to 0
The next instruction was to Click the "Write Protection" icon, and set the "Value data" to 0.
followed by restarting the machine.
I did this but it made no difference.
2. Followed the suggestion of using AOMEI Partitiion Assistant to format the stick. Unable to do so
because Write Protected.

It is not really a big deal to me because I can always throw the stick away, but I would like to
know if there is anything else I could have tried, whether anyone else has had this problem
and how they solved it, if they did, what may have caused it and if it is preventable.
Any advice gratefully received

Unless it has a physical "read-only" switch/notch, it's likely that the disk
is worn out and is dying.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Sun, 3/29/2026 8:23 PM, Hello There wrote:

On 29/03/2026 18:25, scbs29 wrote:

I have also tried
1. Edit registry
navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.

Before hacking the Windows registry, have you tried to clear the
read-only attributes using: "attributes disk clear readonly" You run
this command from Disk Management console but you need to select the
correct disk first.

Registry hack is the last thing to do but I don't recommend this to
anybody on these newsgroups. People can end up damaging their otherwise fully functional PC.

The command to clear the read-only attributes does no harm even if the
disk is write-protected.

The "attributes" thing is in diskpart.exe which runs in an administrator terminal.

Attributes are part of GPT, so you would expect the word with the flags,
to be written in a GPT Partition Table entry. If the disk is MSDOS partitioned, I have no idea where that flag goes. It might go to the filesystem header sector.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

GUID partition entry format [128 bytes each, 128 partitions max]

Offset Length Contents
0 (0x00) 16 bytes Partition type GUID (little endian[b])
16 (0x10) 16 bytes Unique partition GUID (little endian[b])
32 (0x20) 8 bytes First LBA (little endian)
40 (0x28) 8 bytes Last LBA (inclusive, usually odd)
48 (0x30) 8 bytes Attribute flags (e.g. bit 60 denotes read-only) <===
56 (0x38) 72 bytes Partition name (36 UTF-16LE code units)

The Registry method likely covers the corner cases where GPT attributes
are not available.

And that is a partition attribute. The ATTRIB MSDOS command is not
the same thing, and files have their own attributes definitions.

FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY = 1 (0x1)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN = 2 (0x2)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM = 4 (0x4)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECTORY = 16 (0x10)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ARCHIVE = 32 (0x20)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL = 128 (0x80)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_TEMPORARY = 256 (0x100)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SPARSE_FILE = 512 (0x200)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_REPARSE_POINT = 1024 (0x400)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_COMPRESSED = 2048 (0x800) [New Compression is a reparse point]
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_OFFLINE = 4096 (0x1000)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NOT_CONTENT_INDEXED = 8192 (0x2000)
FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ENCRYPTED = 16384 (0x4000) [Likely EFS, encryption at single file level]

Paul


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Yes, I copied to the drive and it was during the copy of the last file,
an mp4 1.7 Gb that I first had the problem. I can see the file on the drive
but it will not p[lay in my media player because of corruption.

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:12:10 +1100, Daniel70 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

On 30/03/2026 4:25 am, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When
I tried again I was told that the USB disk was Read Only.

Had you previously Written anything to that Drive?? Maybe an ISO file or >something.

When you plug it into your Computer, can you see what is (supposedly) on >your Drive???

--
remove fred before emailing

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Perhaps if I explain further.
I am converting .ts video files to mp4
I copy the mp4 files to a USB thumb drive to plug into my Humax digital receiver/recorder to see if they will play correctly on my tv. Most files are ok, but
some will not play this way for one reason or another. It was while I was doing this that
I came across the read-only problem. I did of course try formattting the drive on Linux, as
well as every solution I found on the internet. I was informed on Linux that the drive had
formatted correctly. Trying in Windows 11 again, though,still showed the read-only problem.
My whole intention in posting about this was purely outof interest.
I am not bothered if I have to throw the particular thumb drive away, I just sought
the thoughts of others.

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:32:45 +0100, scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net> wrote:

Yes, I copied to the drive and it was during the copy of the last file,
an mp4 1.7 Gb that I first had the problem. I can see the file on the drive >but it will not p[lay in my media player because of corruption.

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:12:10 +1100, Daniel70 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

On 30/03/2026 4:25 am, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When
I tried again I was told that the USB disk was Read Only.

Had you previously Written anything to that Drive?? Maybe an ISO file or >>something.

When you plug it into your Computer, can you see what is (supposedly) on >>your Drive???

--
remove fred before emailing

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Thanks for the reply.
I did copy to another thumb drive and this was successful.

On Tue, 31 Mar 2026 20:19:03 +1100, Daniel70 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

On 31/03/2026 1:32 am, scbs29 wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:12:10 +1100, Daniel70
<daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

On 30/03/2026 4:25 am, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed.
When I tried again I was told that the USB disk was Read Only.

Had you previously Written anything to that Drive?? Maybe an ISO
file or something.

When you plug it into your Computer, can you see what is
(supposedly) on your Drive???

Yes, I copied to the drive and it was during the copy of the last
file, an mp4 1.7 Gb that I first had the problem. I can see the file
on the drive but it will not play in my media player because of
corruption.

I'm guessing, then, that you got an 'incomplete file' copy, i.e. you
might have just gotten part of the file copied to the disk but not all
so the disk or file is incomplete.

Try coping that file and that file only to a new disk and then see if
you can play the new disk.

--
remove fred before emailing

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Tue, 3/31/2026 5:19 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

On 31/03/2026 1:32 am, scbs29 wrote:

On Mon, 30 Mar 2026 21:12:10 +1100, Daniel70 <daniel47@nomail.afraid.org> wrote:

On 30/03/2026 4:25 am, scbs29 wrote:

Hello all While copying a file to a USB stick the action failed. When I tried again I was told that the USB disk was Read Only.

Had you previously Written anything to that Drive?? Maybe an ISO file or something.

When you plug it into your Computer, can you see what is (supposedly) on your Drive???

Yes, I copied to the drive and it was during the copy of the last file, an mp4 1.7 Gb that I first had the problem. I can see the file on the drive but it will not play in my media player because of
corruption.

I'm guessing, then, that you got an 'incomplete file' copy, i.e. you might have just gotten part of the file copied to the disk but not all so the disk or file is incomplete.

Try coping that file and that file only to a new disk and then see if you can play the new disk.

USB flash drives just die. First they're running fine.
Then there is five to ten minutes of writing at 2MB/sec,
then the next time you plug them in they can't be detected.

So yeah, by definition, the copy is incomplete, the device
has stopped responding, and no format attempt can work because
the PNP does not even detect it any more.

And this has been more frequent on the TLC flash drives.
If you have a USB stick based on SLC or MLC, those still work.
The TLC sticks, do not appear to work for even the rating
assigned to TLC. They might be as bad as 100x worse than
their spec. They are the bog roll of storage. Awful.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 4/1/2026 6:00 AM, Daniel70 wrote:

All good advice, Paul, as usual, but it would seem scbs29
DID manage to copy across the file. Maybe a different drive but who knows!

Yes, it was a different flash stick.

You would not expect the sick flash stick to do any better
on subsequent attempts. Once the USB stick gets into
the "spiral of death", the conclusion is always the same.
The behavior tends to be "anomalous" at the end.
I don't know why it does that. A flash stick is not
a HDD with dirt on the platter :-) That does not explain it.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)