Write Protection

[.Maleficus.]

I feel so dumb posting this, because I should know it, but...

Out of the blue, my mom's flash drive stopped allowing her to write to it. Windows is complaining the drive is write protected and I need to turn it off. I searched high and low in the Properties for it, but couldn't find anything. I also tried to turn off Autoplay (which started happening recently too) but again, I couldn't find anything in the Properties that would let me turn it off.

Thanks guys.

[XcOM]

is it a CD card or a true flash drive, some times these have hidden switchs to protect the drive, like old floppys used to have

[.Maleficus.]

It's a true, 1GB PNY flash drive. PNY Attache to be exact.

[Xpirate]

Have you tried this:

Plug in the flash drive
Right click on My Computer
Choose Properties
Switch to the hardware tab
There should be a button like "Device Manager". Click on this.
Find your flash drive on this list. Right click on it and choose uninstall.
Unplug the flash drive, wait a few seconds then plug it back in.
You should now get a new hardware wizard dialog.

Not sure if it will work, just found it on another tech forum.

[simon275]

Have you tried reformatting it?

Also these days it is not a big loss with flash memory been as cheap as it is.