Solved: the Storage is Write Protected on Samsung SD Card

The storage is write protected in Samsung device

Samsung SD card, like many other SD cards, is commonly used storage for Samsung smart phone as expanding storage. Sometimes, users need to transfer files on SD card to computer or from PC to the SD card. Following error may appear.

The storage is write protected micro SD card: my SD card on Samsung Galaxy S3 seems write protected. I’d like to copy a funny video and some MP3 music from my Windows 10 to the SD card so I can watch that video and listen to the music anywhere. However, when I copy to that card, it says I can’t. Please help.

You may come across write protection while formatting SD card for other purposes. For example, format a Samsung 850 EVO micro SD card 32GB to exFAT for Mac OS X. You may find you even cannot delete because the storage is write protected.

Except for SD card on Samsung S4/S5, write protection error also happens on Samsung USB stick, pen drive, memory card, or external hard drive. Well, what are the causes for write protection?

Causes for the disk is write protected Samsung

Before you acquire why Samsung SD card get write protected, you may want to know what write protection is. In general, write protection, also known as read only, allows you to view files on that disk instead of deleting or modifying them. With write protection, a file will not be inadvertently deleted or overwritten. Then what accounts for a storage write protected?

• Your SD card or Samsung SD card adapter for microSD card has a write protection tab. The tab can be slide up and down to enable or disable protection.

• The file system on your SD card is corrupted or damaged by cyber virus or hacker.

• The SD card is set to read only manually in properties.

Since the storage is write protected, you need to remove write protection. Get to know the operation step by step.

How to remove write protection on micro SD card Samsung?

As covered, you can slide a tab upward or downward to release SD card write protection. However, if tab sliding not working or there is no write protection tab, try following methods. Connect your Samsung SD card to a computer and make sure it can be detected by Windows device manager.

Clear read-only attribute with diskpart

You can modify SD card property to remove write protection.

1. Press Windows key and R key combination to bring out Run, type diskpart and hit Enter. Run as administrator.

2. In Command Prompt, type:

• list disk

• select disk n (where n is your Samsung SD card which can be distinguished by storage size)

• attrib disk clear Readonly

• exit

Tips:

• In case you need protect your SD card from formatting or erasing in the future, you can type “attributes disk set readonly” to enable write protection in CMD.

• You may need to format the partition on your Samsung SD card after the setting before you can write to. As a reminder, that will erase all data on your SD card, backup SD card before formatting if the need ever arises.

Remove write protection Samsung SD in Registry Editor

If your Samsung micro SD card still not writable, your may need to remove the protection in another manner. Registry Editor is the database for Windows system and installed applications, so be cautious when you do following operations.

1. Open Run and type regedit and hit Enter to start Registry Editor.

2. Navigate to following path: (In Windows 10, you can paste the path in Address bar directly).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies

3. Double click the WriteProtect option and set the value from 1 to 0 (1 means positive and 0 stands for negative).

Tips: If there is no WriteProtect option under StorageDevicePolicies, you can create a rule manually, name it and set the value to 0.

Format Samsung SD card with professional SD card formatter

There is another SD card formatting tool that can help you solve the storage is write protected on micro SD card. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard is free partition manager that is able to format write-protected Samsung SD card, USB flash drive, memory card, pen drive, external hard drive, etc. quickly and effectively.

1. Download, install and run the free formatting tool for your Samsung SD card. At main interface, find your SD card, right click it and select Format Partition. 

2. In the prompt window, you can edit partition label, choose cluster size and file system based on your own needs.

3. Preview the virtual outcome. Click Apply and thenProceed to execute the pending operation. The process won’t take too long.

Tips: Formatting behavior will cause data lose on SD card, backup important files if any.

Conclusion

When facing the storage is write protected on Samsung SD card or USB drive, it is important to make it usable again. With the help of Windows built-in tools and free AOMEI Partition Assistant, things become easier.

The advanced version, AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional allows you to perform partition alignment in Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, change serial number and partition type ID of your device, as well as recover deleted files.