Did you ever try formatting your SD card only to discover that it’s write-protected- in other words, you cannot access the card itself, or access the files inside the card? 

Sounds frustrating, right? This article is your relief. 

I’m going to walk you through easy ways to format a write-protected SD card. We’ll cover 

• The meaning of ‘write protection
• how to format locked sd card?
• How to format the card after removing the protection. Shall we start?

Must Read: 5 Methods on How to Remove Write Protection from SD Cards

What is write protection? 

Also called ‘read-only,’ write protection is the functionality of storage media like an SD card to prevent a user from writing or changing new data. 

This allows a user to read the information present in the card, but restricted from copying or deleting the card. Thus, you cannot format a write-protected SD. 

In this situation, you now have a useless SD card until you’re able to delete the write protection on it. 

How to Remove and Format Write Protected SD Card- The easy way 

The easiest way to remove the ‘write-protected’ error from your SD card is to slide up the small lock switch on any side of the SD card (mostly on the left side) 

But, sadly, you may still have a write-protected SD card even after unlocking. In such a situation, here is how to disable the write protection. 

Method 1

Check the ‘properties’ of your SD Card

Head over to “My computer,” locate your card reader at the ” Removable storage” option. Now, right-click on it and click “properties” 

You could find the option to delete the write protection. If yes (yay), click on it, and remove the protection.  

Method 2

Clear the ‘read-only’ attributes with CMD

 Windows typically features CMD tools that troubleshoot and lets you see bad sectors on a particular drive or delete a partition. 

Here are the necessary steps to removing read-only attributes:

Step 1

Click on the “start” icon and enter “cmd” in the search area. To open, Right-click and choose “Run as Administrator” then type the commands below and hit “Enter” after typing each of these:

 Disk part

List disk

Select disk

Once done, your SD card should get back to work. 

Method 3

Using registry editor to remove write protection 

If the above CMD option does not seems to work and you still have a write-protected SD card, the registry editor can also help you remove the write protection. Simply take the following steps: 

Step 1: Click on “Windows key +R” to start the program.  To start the registry editor, Input “Regedit” and hit “OK” 

Step 2: On the left corner, extend the entries to get to the below path. 

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM\currentcontrolset\control\storagedevicepolicies

Step 3: Right-click on “write-protection” and edit the data from 1-0. Now hit the “Ok” button. 

Formatting SD card after disabling write protection 

Once you’re able to remove the write protection on your card, it becomes ready for use. 

And to format it, here what to do: 

Step 1: Click “Start,” input ” Run” on the search bar and click “Enter”

Step 2: Then type “CMD” in the run box and press “Ok” 

Step 3: By now, your command prompt window should be opened. Hit “diskpart” and run diskpart utility. 

Step 4: Now, input “list disk” to look for the drives on your PC 

Step 5: Then, Type “disk 1” (your SD card number should be 1) 

Step 6: Click on “clean” to delete all your SD card data. 

Step 7: Then, you must create a partition. Click on “Create partition primary” 

Step 8: Now type “select partition 1” (where 1 stands for the newly created partition). Then input “Active” to activate the partition. 

Step 9: Finally, enter “format fs=ntfs (or format fs=fat32)” to have the partition formatted to the desired file system.

That’s all!