( SD cards only) Broken or altered write-protect switch in the card slot. The registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies should either be absent or set to 0 if it is set to 1, Windows will not allow writing to external storage devices. If you're running Windows, it's possible that your system's Group Policy may be disallowing writing to external storage devices, including USB flash drives.
It's also important to eject the drive properly before removing it or at least wait until the drive has finished writing, as removal of the drive while it is writing data can cause low-level data corruption. If this addresses the problem, your drive is probably working normally. The drive might have a corrupted filesystem or other issue (possibly specific to a particular computer or OS) that can be corrected by using CHKDSK or a similar utility.
If you're able to write to the drive from another computer, you might be experiencing one of the following problems:įilesystem corruption. If the drive appears to be write-protected, start by inserting the drive into another computer to isolate the cause of the issue.
