WOW 02

WOW 02 - Registry (Disable Write Protect)

Good Afternoon Friends,

Hope you like WOW. I know it's too early to ask, but leave me a comment so that I could improve on that.

How many of you have faced the error: "The Disk is write-protected. Remove the write-protection..." when you try to copy something from your PC to a removable media and didn't know what to do. Well, you would know what to do once you finish reading this, so read on...

Why:

There could be two reasons why we receive this error. One is due to Hardware and the other due to Software.

Hardware: You may have to refer to the hardware manual on how to disable write protect. In case of floppy disk (where you don't get a manual), you can do this by sliding the Write Protect slot in the bottom left corner of the floppy disk. (Anyways, who uses a floppy these days?)

Software: Write Protect settings may be enabled in your Operating System. I shall explain to you the step by step process on what needs to be done to disable that:

Steps:

Method 1:

1. Open your Registry Editor. (Start -> Run -> regedit)
2. Navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\StorageDevicePolicies"
3. Click on the "WriteProtect" Binary key and set it to '0' ('1': To Enable Write Protect; i.e., You will not be able to copy data from your PC to a Removable Media)
4. Close the registry. At times, it may require re-booting the PC.

Method 2:

1. Open Notepad (or any other Text Editor) and paste the following lines:
2. -------------Copy below lines------------- Don't copy this line
   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\StorageDevicePolicies]
   "WriteProtect"=dword:00000000
   -------------Copy below lines------------- Don't copy this line
3. Save this file with the filename "DisableWriteProtect.reg". The extension of this file should be "reg".
4. Double click on this file and click "Yes" when you are shown a warning. Lo, wasn't that easy.
5. To enable it again; change the content of the file to "dword:00000001" instead of "dword:00000000" and follow steps 3 and 4.

Now, you know what needs to be done when you want to copy something onto your thumb drive and the PC throws you an ugly message.

Danish :)