Alteration in registry or permissions by user or malware/virusĪ write-protected hard drive allows you to access the data in it (if the drive is not corrupt), but you cannot write or paste new files and folders, which makes the drive literally unusable.But before you head to solutions, here are a few common reasons that enable write-protection on a hard drive: Thus, if an external hard drive or internal drive volume becomes write-protected, you need to rely on Windows troubleshooting steps to remove the write-protection. However, unlike SD cards, there is no such switch to enable or disable write-protection in a hard drive. Write-protection on SD card and some thumb drives can be turned ON or OFF by using an attached physical switch.
