Restoring kingston datatraveler 100 g3. The flash drive says the disk is write protected. What signs of life might there be in a USB drive?

I apologize for the title, but this is exactly how the question is asked when operating with a USB flash drive or SD card Windows memory reports the error “The disk is write-protected. Remove protection or use another disk" (The disk is write-protected). In this instruction, I will show you several ways to remove protection from a flash drive or memory card and tell you where it comes from.

I note that in different cases a message stating that the disk is write-protected may appear various reasons- often for a reason Windows settings, but sometimes - due to a damaged flash drive. I will touch on all the options and the corresponding methods for removing protection in Windows 10, 8.1 or Windows 7. If something is not entirely clear, then at the bottom of the article there is a video that demonstrates almost all the ways to fix the error.

Another way that can help remove the error USB disk which suddenly shows an error when writing - remove protection on the command line.

To do this, do the following:

1. (In Windows 10, this is easiest to do through search in the taskbar, in Windows 8.1 - using the right-click menu on the Start button, in Windows 7 - through right-clicking on the command line in the Start menu).
2. At the command prompt, enter diskpart and press Enter. Then enter the command list disk and find your flash drive in the list of disks, you will need its number. Enter the following commands in order, pressing Enter after each one.
3. select disk N(where N is the number of the flash drive from the previous step)
4. attributes disk clear readonly
5. exit

Close the Command Prompt, unplug and reconnect the flash drive, then try to do something with the flash drive, such as formatting it or writing down some information, to see if the error goes away.

The disk is write protected - a solution for flash drives Transcend, Kingston, Silicon Power and others

Video instruction

Below is a video on this error, which shows all the methods described above. Perhaps she can help you figure out the problem.

I hope one of the approaches helped you solve the problem. If not, I also recommend checking your flash drive on another computer or laptop: this will allow you to determine whether the write protection is a consequence of the system parameters or whether the drive itself is to blame.

Hi all! It’s not for nothing that I decided to write an article on how to flash a flash drive – I have experience. Yesterday I restored my flash drive Kingston DT Elite 3.0 16GB. Everything worked out, and I thought, why not write similar instructions, and tell me what to do and how to do it, in order to give the flash drive a new life :).

Nowadays, probably every house has a flash drive and very rarely just one. It’s convenient to transfer information onto them, they’re beautiful, and besides, they’re not expensive these days. But very often USB drives fail. If we talk about why this happens, then we ourselves are in first place. Do you always do a safe removal of your flash drive? So I rarely do. There may, of course, be other reasons why flash drives simply “die”.

One point needs to be clarified here. It happens that the flash drive really “dies”. In this case, it is impossible to restore it. At least at home. But if the USB drive shows at least some signs of life when connected to the computer, then you can try to restore its operation using the controller firmware.

What signs of life might there be? USB storage?

• When you connect the flash drive to the computer, the computer signals that the device is connected - that’s good.
• At Windows connection ask to format the removable drive (but during the formatting process there are problems and errors such as “Windows cannot complete formatting”).
• The flash drive is detected and visible in Explorer, but when you try to open it, the message “Insert disk...” appears.
• Errors occur when copying information.
• Very slow speed of writing/reading information.

If there is valuable information on the flash drive, then you can try to restore it before and after the firmware. This can be done using different programs. I advice Recuva, here is the article but there are many other good programs.

If the information is very valuable, then it is better not to do anything yourself so as not to make it worse. Contact special service centers that specialize in data recovery.

Let's now look at the entire process of flashing the controller using a real example, using my Kingston DataTraveler Elite 3.0 16GB flash drive as an example. My flash drive broke down. It’s interesting. I needed to upload files to it and delete those that had already been recorded. I connected it to the computer and started deleting the folder. But the folder was deleted very slowly. I unplugged and plugged this flash drive back in, a message appeared that the disk needs to be formatted “Before using the disk...”.

Since there were no Important files on the flash drive, I started formatting without hesitation.

But the process itself lasted a very long time and never ended, I forcibly stopped it. The message “Windows could not complete formatting” may also appear.

But still, I formatted it, the tenth time, and only in FAT 32. After which the USB drive was detected normally and I was even happy. But it was not there. I started copying files onto it, and the recording speed was approximately 100 kb/s. I decided to flash it, which I did.

Determining the VID and PID of the USB controller

First we need determine VID and PID. This is data about the model and manufacturer of the controller, which is located in our drive. Using this data, we will look for a utility for the firmware. There are many different programs that can be used to determine VID and PID. I recommend the utility Flash Drive Information Extractor You can download it from the link.

Connect the USB flash drive to your computer and run Flash program Drive Information Extractor (extract the program folder from the archive and run the GetFlashInfo.exe file).

Click the button at the top of the program “Get data about the flash drive”.

The program will give us the result. We look at the information that is located opposite VID and PID.

You can copy these numbers, or leave the utility window open, we will now need the received data.

We are looking for a utility for flashing a flash drive

Based on the VID and PID data, we need to find the utility with which we will flash the controller. There is a good website flashboot.ru, which contains a database of flash drives and utilities for their recovery.

In the search results we look for a flash drive similar to ours. The list may include devices from other manufacturers. They just have the same controller, it was identified by VID and PID. You may have noticed that I have a 16 GB flash drive, but in the list I highlighted 32 GB. I think there's nothing wrong with that (just where the name of the utility is not indicated on 16 GB). You try to choose a more similar device from the list.

We are interested in the field UTILS(utility), copy its name in full.

Unfortunately, the utility that I need was not found on this site. Perhaps you will have better luck and you will see something in the search results. Download the utility to your computer.

But I didn’t stop there and started Googling. I just asked “SK6221 MPTool 2013-04-25” and found this utility on some other site. If you have the same flash drive, then this utility is . True, the name of the archive is different, but this did not stop me from successfully curing my flash drive.

USB drive recovery process

Disconnect the flash drive. Extract the folder with the utility from the archive and run .exe file. In my case it is the MPTool.exe file. Also look text file readme.txt. Perhaps there are instructions there, or a link to a site with instructions. If the instructions are in English, then translate it using the same translate.google.ru.

I'll tell you how I did it (you just may have a different utility and everything may be different there, but it shouldn’t be very different).

The utility is running. We connect the flash drive. I have information about the flash drive in two lines in the program. Press the button Start. In my case, the yellow strip signaled the firmware process. We wait.

When the process ended, I saw a green color, everything seemed to be fine.

A Windows message should immediately appear asking you to format the disk. But most likely nothing will work out the first time. Unplug the flash drive and plug it back in. The driver should be installed and the removable drive should appear in Explorer. You can format it.

I checked the recording speed, everything is as it should be for USB 3.0, everything is fine!

You need to be prepared for the fact that the actions may differ from those I described. And not everything can work out the first time. The main thing is not to give up and everything will work out!

Kingston flash drives are renowned for their reliability and long term services, but they are also not protected from various failures. Sometimes the drive actually “dies” and it is not possible to restore it. More often there are situations when a flash drive can be brought back to life using a special firmware utility.

Most often, Kingston dt100g2 and datatraveler flash drives break.

Is it possible to recover a flash drive?

Signs that the drive can be restored:

• When you connect a flash drive, a notification appears that a new device has been detected.
• The system prompts you to format the removable disk.
• The drive does not open, but is shown in Explorer.
• Errors occur when reading and writing data.

These problems can be eliminated by flashing the controller or formatting the media, but if the flash drive has important information, then before performing any restoration procedures you need to try to “pull it out”. Use to extract a recovery program like Recuva or so as not to lose the necessary files.

Search for a program for flashing the controller

To restore you will need special utility for Kingston flash drive. To avoid mistakes and download the correct program, you need to know the model of the drive controller.

Method 1

You can view the necessary information on the website flashboot.ru in the iFlash section, using the VID and PID values ​​of the flash drive as a filter.

1. Connect the drive to your computer.
2. Open the device manager (right-click on the “Computer” icon - Manage).
3. Find "USB Mass Storage Device".
4. Right click and open properties.
   
5. Go to the Details section and select the Hardware ID property.

Method 2

Another way to obtain the necessary information is to download the Flash Drive Information Extractor program and click the “Get Data” button. The report will contain the lines “VID” and “PID”; use their value to find a utility that can correctly restore the Kingston Datatraveler flash drive.

You can download the program in the “Files” section on the website flashboot.ru. If the utility is not here, try to find it on other web resources.

Recovery utilities

You can find the desired program without a controller model - just type in the search engine the query “utility recovery kingston" In the results you will see several utilities, among which there will certainly be programs such as Phison Preformat, AlcorMP AU698x RT, etc.

The problem is that Kingston flash drive recovery programs only work if they are compatible with the controller installed in the drive. Therefore, if you download the first repair utility you come across, it may not detect the connected media.

When required program found, you can begin to restore it. Be sure to look at the instructions, which should be packaged in the archive along with the recovery utility - perhaps the program has a special operating procedure. The general recovery procedure looks like this:

You don’t need to do anything else: the program will automatically correct errors and return the flash drive to a working state. This completes the restoration of the Kingston flash drive; If the controller firmware did not help resolve the problem, then the cause of incorrect operation should be sought among hardware faults.

How to remove write protection from a flash drive - instructions! The “disk is write-protected” or “flash drive is write-protected” error usually happens at the most inopportune moment. If you started reading this article, then you turned out to be one of those “lucky” people who at one point decided to put something on your flash drive, but in the end received a message from the system that you cannot write data to the disk and now this very protection needs to be removed. A person who has encountered something like this for the first time reasonably appears completely bewildered. Let's try to find out the reasons why we can't write files to a flash drive and figure out how to fix this problem.

Causes of the error “The disk is write-protected. Remove protection or use another disk."

It is quite logical that such a problem arises if operating system polls the disk, but does not receive write permission. In this case, it is not possible to write files, although at the same time data can be read without any problems. The reasons for this behavior vary, but clearly fall into two groups:

1. Software glitch.
2. Hardware failure.

It is important to understand that both types of problems can happen both on the flash drive and on your computer.

Types of write protection

By analogy with the reasons for the “media is write-protected” error, write protection methods can also be divided. A classic example of hardware protection would be the presence of a special switch (on the body of a flash drive) that turns on and off the ability to write to a flash drive.

Software protection is of various types software systems, designed to prevent unauthorized use of the drive.

When deciding how to remove the protection if “The disk is write protected”, first of all check if there is a special small switch on the case. It is always present on SD cards, and is somewhat less common on regular USB drives. Accidental switching is not uncommon when a flash drive is carried in a pocket.

Also, be sure to check the functionality of the flash drive in other USB ports, or even better, on another computer. If you are the owner desktop computer with the system unit, it is preferable to check the flash drive by connecting to the ports on the back wall system unit. The problem may lie in poor contact, poor-quality wires, or failure of the USB controller.

Software removal of write protection

After making sure that there is no mechanical protection problem, we proceed to checking the software.
By default, the flash drive is formatted using the FAT32 file system. A small number of users are aware of the limitation in this file system to maximum size file in 4Gb. This results in a twofold situation: formally there is permission to write, but a message about the impossibility of doing so appears. Having the need to transfer files big size, format the drive using NTFS - a system where there are no such restrictions. To do this, open “My Computer,” right-click on your removable drive and select “Format.” In the window that appears, in the “File system” line, select NTFS, click “Start”.

Important! It is always better to use “safe removal” before removing the flash drive from the connector. Due to some features regarding flash drives formatted in NTFS, this should be a mandatory rule.

The blocking can be set in the Windows registry. The Windows key combination + R will open the Run window, type regedit and click OK.

In the editor window, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies section, where you will see the WriteProtect parameter on the right. Double-click on the parameter to bring up a dialog for changing the parameter, set the value to 0. The StorageDevicePolicies section may be missing and you will have to create it. To create, right-click the previous Control section, select “New > Section”, the name should be StorageDevicePolicies. In the empty area on the right side of the window of the newly created section, right-click again, select “New > DWORD Value” in the menu, select bitness 64 or 32, depending on the bitness of your system. Name the parameter WriteProtect and set the value to 0 as described above. Be sure to reboot and check the result.

Make sure that recording to removable devices is not prohibited by group policy. Similarly to launching the Registry Editor, execute gpedit.msc, which will bring up the “Local Group Policy Editor”. Follow the branches “Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - System - Access to Removable Storage Devices”. On the right, check the “Removable drives: Deny writing” option. It should be disabled or not set. If the option is enabled, double-click on it, select Disable, and apply the selection. Don't forget to reboot before checking.

Check the system good antivirus with fresh databases. There are some malware, blocking the opportunity normal operation with connected portable storage devices.

A significant number of Windows users prefer file manager Total Commander, offering extensive features and ease of use. It is important to understand that Total Commander is essentially just a convenient add-on for Windows, so everything described in the article applies to it. However, there are nuances. Try copying your files in Windows Explorer, if there are no problems with copying in Explorer, open “Configuration > Settings: File Operations” and select “Automatically select copy method”. The authors of some builds of this manager set settings that cause such failures.

Remove write protection in the command line (cmd)

How to remove protection from a write-protected flash drive using the command line. The method is a little more complicated. Find the application in the Start menu " Command line"and run it with administrator rights. Next, enter the following commands one by one, confirming each entry by pressing Enter.

Attention! All contents of the flash drive will be deleted permanently!

1. Diskpart– launches the disk management utility;
2. list disk– will display all disks connected to the system, you need to determine which of them is your flash drive, for which you can use the size of the disk;
3. select disk X– targets the program to a disk; instead of X, specify the number of the desired disk;
4. detail disk- will show detailed information about the selected disk to ensure that the choice is correct;
5. attributes disk clear readonly– resets the read-only attribute;
6. clean– all volumes and partitions on the disk will be deleted;
7. create partition primary– re-creates the main partition;
8. formatfs=fat32– formats the partition using file system FAT32 (you can select file NTFS system commandfs=ntfs);
9. exit– terminates the program.

Programs for removing write protection

Flash drive manufacturers take care of solving various types of problems that arise with their products, releasing proprietary utilities for restoring problematic devices. Do not forget that you must run any of these utilities with administrator rights. These useful programs can be freely downloaded from the respective manufacturers' websites. Transcend calls it , Silicon Power– , Adata – , Kingston – . Their use is quite simple and does not cause difficulties even for beginners.

The programs listed below are designed for advanced users and you should read the documentation before using them. Independent developers release their own universal programs, not tied to any vendor, but with similar functionality.

Popular representatives:,AlcorMP.

The latter only works with drives on the controller of the same name, but all have the same task - to help restore the problematic device. When faced with finding a solution to how to remove protection from a flash drive, as a last resort, you should try to reflash it. Flash Drive Information Extractor will tell you complete information about the type of controller, the memory used and even the production date.

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