write protected hard drive

[beardy]

I haven't been able to find a resolution for this problem with microsoft, nor using my friend google and wondered if the collective Pprune brains can help.

Win XP sp3, zone alarm and avsoft anti virus. Internal HDD (C) and USB HDD (partitioned L & M.) I have been using L as a back up. One day,when trying to create a new folder I found 'unable to create new folder as media is write protected.' I created the new partition M using AESEUS, the new partition was fine. Next day when trying to create a new folder 'unable to create new folder as media is write protected' appeared on M. Disconnecting and reconnecting L/M made no difference. Luckily (?) no problems with C.

Can I and if so how do I remove the write protection?

[BOAC]

This may help? Are you brave enough to edit your registry (having backed it up first, of course!)?

Run Registry Editor (regedit).

Navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control

If you have this key already, check to see if you have a value 'StorageDevicePolicies'.

If so, and the value is 1, set its value to 0, otherwise

Create a New Key named StorageDevicePolicies.

Highlight StorageDevicePolicies, and then create a New DWORD (32-bit) Value named WriteProtect.

Double click on WriteProtect, and set its value data to 0.

Fingers crossed.

Your symptoms are sometimes caused by a virus,by the way.........................

[beardy]

BOAC,

Tried that, no positive result unfortunately. I've tried virus scan with both AVIRA and AVAST, nothing has shown up to resolve the problem. Thanks for the effort.

P.S tried to defrag and it called it a read only disk (makes sense really.)
PPS I altered the partition L and M sizes using EASEUS and have recovered the ability to write to M, but not L.

[BOAC]

Odd! Maybe more here?
USB External Hard Drive "Write Protected" Issues - Cyber Tech Help Support Forums (http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=185805) - I see that also adds another couple of reg hacks to my post.

[beardy]

BOAC,

Thanks for that. I will try it all when I get back in a few days. Interestingly the C drive is unaffected.

[beardy]

I solved the problem by deleting software required to control Ximeta NDAS.

(Network Direct Attached Storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Direct_Attached_Storage) )

I had replaced the HDD in the NDAS box and updated the software at the same time. Damn thing doesn't work now, I think it's because I have an older version of the enclosure software that is not compatible with the new external HDD (not the same drive that went to read only, that is on a USB not ethernet.)

Ah, such joy!

[bnt]

NDAS is a new name to me: a proprietary NAS system, meaning that you are at the mercy of the vendor and their drivers. Windows and Mac only, no official Linux or other standards-based support (e.g. SMB). though I see there's an experimental Linux daemon. Not impressed ...