How To Wipe An External Hard Drive

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Ashwani Tiwari | Modified: May 19th, 2020 | Windows Error

Most hard drives come 'preformatted' and ready to use these days. But you occasionally might need to format one yourself. For example, formatting typically removes most of the data on a drive, making it a quicker way to erase a large drive than simply deleting everything on it. Hover over the System Tools option and select Erase Disk in the menu that appears. A window of various erasure options will pop up; the external commands work well with traditional hard drives, but.

'Please help me! My friend gave me its hard-drive that consist of a school project. But when I was trying to perform any action on drive, it keeps showing the disk is write protected message. I asked the same to my friend and he does not know how to remove write protection from external hard drive in Windows 10? Now, I am in trouble! If anyone knows the resolving solution, then please suggest me.'

How to download google chrome without internet browser. Is your external hard-drive or other drive refusing to write anything on it? Or Is it showing the message that ‘disk is write protected'? Actually, the write protection signifies that one can only view the data items stored on the external drive, but not able to perform any modification in it. The users who do not know how to remove write permission, follow this article carefully. In this post, users will find out the various solutions that can disable write protection from external hard drive on Windows system.

Methods to Remove Write Protection from External Hard Drive

In the following sections, the users can get the different workarounds that help in to erase the write protection from external hard disk drive. The method is divided into two parts; the first section describes the procedure to eliminate write protection and the the second step will provide the solution to retrieve data that lost during the removal of write protection. The write permission can be easily disabled from the hard-drive by using the following approaches in Windows 10, 8, 7.

Best Way to Secure Data from Any Disaster

In order to get back the data from drive that lost during the removal of write permission, take help of Hard Disk Recovery Wizard. It is an adept tool that recovers the shift+delete, formatted, and missing data from internal as well as the external storage device. It allows the users to retrieve all items within 4 simple steps:

Download Software

  • Plug-in the external hard-drive to the system. After that, run the software on your Windows PC.
  • Next, select the drive from the tool interface and Scan it.
  • Once the scan process gets completed, all the deleted files will be displayed on the software panel.
  • Now, click on Save to download all the files on the local system.

#Approach 1: Use Physical Switch to Disable Write Protection

To prevent the USB sticks or Memory card, some of the manufacturing companies put a switch on it. In a situation, when the flash drive is locked, the write protection automatically puts on that device. The users can easily unlock SD card with the help of Physical switch as shown below:

How To Wipe An External Hard Drive Clean And Start Over

Note:- This method can apply on SD card or flash drive in order to eliminate write protection. With the help of this, users will not lose the data of flash drive.

#Approach 2: Remove Write Protection From Hard Drive Using CMD

This workaround can use for external hard drive as well as USB flash drive. Follow the below instructions to eliminate the write protection easily on Windows 10, 8, 7 etc.

  1. Click on Windows icon and type Run in the text bar.
  2. Once the Run dialog box opened, write ‘cmd' in the bar and hit the Enter key.
  3. In Command Prompt, execute ‘diskpart' command and press Enter.
  4. Once the above command executes successfully, type list disk and press Enter. (Tip: Always keep in mind the disk number of write protected the external hard drive in Windows 10.)
  5. Now, write the number of write protected hard-drive in cmd such as disk 1 and hit Enter key.
  6. In order to remove the write permission, execute attributes disk clear readonly in command prompt.

Limitation: This workaround disables the write permission on external hard drive but results in data loss that saved in the drive. In this, you have to get back deleted files from Windows 10.

#Approach 3: Use Registry Editor to Remove Write Protection From Hard Drive

It is suggested to follow the below instructions carefully because any mistake in Registry can result in data loss. Now, go through the below steps sequentially to remove write protection from hard drive windows 7, 8, 10:

  1. Plug-in external hard-drive that is write protected with the system.
  2. Press Win+R to open Run dialog box.
  3. Type ‘regedit' in the text bar and click on OK to open the Registry.
  4. Next, right-click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and then click on Expand.
  5. After that, click on the Current Control Set from the system list. Then, you have to click on Control.
  6. Now, you need to check the Storage Device Policies. Modify the DWORD value with ‘0' and click on OK.
  7. Close the Regedit window and reboot the system.

#Approach 4: Use BitLocker to Disable Write Protection From External Hard Drive

Most of the times, users use BitLocker partition on their hard-drive. Its function is to protect the data items with the help of encryption feature. But, users cannot make any changes to the BitLocker partition until it is not disabled. Go through the mentioned steps to unlock the BitLocker and remove the write protection from hard disk drive easily:

  1. The first step is to right-click on BitLocker volume and select the Manage BitLocker option for it.
  2. Next, you need to choose the correct partition that is write protected, and then click on Turn Off BitLocker option.
  3. Just wait for some time until the BitLocker decrypt.

Final Thoughts

The problem that the hard-drive is write protected can be easily removed by the above-described workarounds. After removing write protections, many times data can be deleted from the drive. I hope that you had got the valid solution of your query how to remove write protection from external hard drive Windows 10, 8, 7 etc. If having the issues then feel free to contact us.

by Shirly Chen, updated on 2016-08-30 to Erase Data

How to run rar files windows 10. It is important to wipe LaCie external hard drive data before you give it to other people.

Securely Erase Windows 10 Hard Drive

Why we need to wipe LaCie external hard drive? There are many reasons. First of all, when we want to regain the full storage of the LaCie external hard drive, we have to wipe all the useless files from the LaCie external hard drive. More important, we wipe data from LaCie external hard drive because that we don't want to other people to steal our private information through the files on the LaCie external hard drive. If we only delete the files or format the LaCie external hard drive, other people also can easily get our files by recovering them with data recovery software. Under the following circumstances, we need to permanently wipe data from our LaCie external hard drives.

  • When we are going to resell, donate, giveaway or discard our old LaCie external hard drive, we need to wipe all the existing and history data on it.
  • When we are sharing a LaCie external hard drive with other people, we should wipe the sensitive data.
  • We want to permanently destroy some files on the LaCie external hard drive.
  • When we will lend our LaCie external hard drive to other people, we should wipe all the sensitive on it.

How to Wipe LaCie External Hard Drive Data?

When we are going to wipe a 4TB LaCie external hard drive, we can't do it by ourselves. We need a powerful data wipe tool to help use do the job. Super Eraser is a powerful & easy-to-use tool that can wipe data from any kind of hard drive. It can securely and permanently wipe data on LaCie external hard drive. It offers three options to wipe LaCie external hard drive data under Windows or Mac OS. Here, you can see the three options and select one of them to permanently destroy data on your LaCie external hard drive.

How To Wipe An External Hard Drive On Windows 10

Option 1: Erase files or folders on LaCie external hard drive

If you only want to erase specific files or folders on your LaCie external hard drive, you don't have to wipe the entire LaCie external hard drive. This option is able to help you selectively erase files or folders on your LaCie external hard drive. The erased files or folders can't be recovered by any data recovery software. So it is very safe for you to destroy your sensitive data.

How To Wipe An External Ssd

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Option 2: Wipe entire LaCie external hard drive

This option is the most devastating method to wipe all the data on your LaCie external hard drive. It will permanently wipe both all the existing files and the deleted files on the LaCie external hard drive. In a word, it will destroy and wipe everything on your LaCie external hard drive. Then you will regain the full storage of the hard drive, just like a new one. No files or traces will survive.

How To Wipe An External Hard Drive Clean


Option 3: Wipe deleted files on LaCie external hard drive

In some cases, you don't want to give up your existing files on the LaCie external hard drive, you only want to permanently wipe the deleted or formatted data on the LaCie external hard drive. This option is the perfect solution to permanently wipe all the lost data or history traces on your LaCie external hard drive without sacrificing your existing data. Nobody can recover you deleted or lost files after you wipe the unused disk space of the LaCie external hard drive because the deleted or lost files are disappeared forever.

How To Wipe An External Hard Drive


It is easy to permanently and securely wipe LaCie external hard drive data with Super Eraser. Just take a try!

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