Know How To Make Pen Drive Copy Protected - Complete Guide

Pen drive or USB storage devices are one of the best ways for backing up and transferring data from one computer to another device. These USB drives are highly prone to data breach and malware attacks if users act carelessly. Also, in corporates employees share their USB devices to move data around. These all scenarios increase the risk of data loss. Hence, the best way to prevent all these issues is to make pen drive copy protected. So let’s see how we can do this using different techniques.

Make Pen Drive Copy Protected Using Write-Protection Switch

Some Pen Drives/ USB flash drives come with a write-protection switch on the bottom or side. It helps users to keep the drive content safe from virus/ malware while accessing the drives’ data on a public computer. So, check if your device comprises this lock switch and move it to ‘Lock’ position. After this, all your files and make pen drive copy protected.

Make Pen Drive Write Protected Using Diskpart Utility

Windows OS includes DiskPart that allows users to enable or disable the read-only mode on USB flash drive. Below are the guidelines to use this tool:

Step 1: Open Diskpart.exe

1. Connect your Pen Drive to your Windows computer
2. Click Start and in Search section type “cmd”. Press Enter key
3. It will open your Command prompt
4. Now, you need to go to the C root of Command Prompt. In case if you have signed in as user then, just type cd\ and it will redirect you to the root of C drive
5. Here, type DISKPART and hit the Enter button
6. If you have received the UAC prompt that is asking for your permission to continue then, click Yes

Step 2: Make Pen Drive Read Only Permanently Permissions

1. In command line wizard, type list disk and hit the Enter button
2. Figure out your USB stick that is connected to PC. Most likely it is DISK 1
3. Select the removable disk to change the attributes and type SELECT DISK 1
4. Next, to set the drive as read-only, type ATTRIBUTES DISK SET READONLY
5. After this, the DiskPart will confirm that the attribute was sent and now type EXIT

Change Security Permissions to Make Pen Drive Write Protected

To check the security permissions you need to be changed, follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Open My Computer and click File Explorer
2. Recognize your USB flash drive from the list of drives that are connected to your computer
3. Hit a right-click on the pen drive icon and choose Properties option
4. In Properties wizard, click Security >> Edit
5. Go to the section named Write Attributes and hit a click on the checkbox next to Read Only
6. Click Apply and all of the changes will be saved after this. Now, make pen drive copy protected

Make Pen Drive Copy protected Using Windows Registry Editor

Below are the guidelines to make pen drive read only permanently with the help of Registry Directory:

1. Click Start and choose Run. Type regedit and hit the Enter button
2. In the registry window follow below sequence:
3. Click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\
4. Search for the sub-directory within Control\ to check if the key is named as StorageDevicePolicies exists
5. In case if the key is not available then, create a new one via placing the right-click on Control\ directory. A
6. After this, you will get a drop-down menu. Choose New >> Key
7. Now, check if the entry is WriteProtect. If the entry is not present then, hit a right-click on the window and choose New eventually followed by the DWORD. There are 2 crucial values: 0 and 1.
   1. O means write processes
   2. 1 means block the access
   So, write the value as 1

   After doing these thing if you lost your files and folders and want to recover it then, no need to worry about that simply try pen drive file recovery software. It is capable enough to recover deleted, corrupted, and formatted data from pen drive, and SD card. This tool has ability to recover all types of files and folders like photos, videos, audio’s, documents etc.

   Summing It Up

   Write protection prevents USB drives from accidental overwriting and deletion. However, the main question that comes before enabling the write-protection is how to make pen drive copy protected. Considering this common query, we have come up with this article. Here, we have disclosed some simple and cost-efficient solutions to make pen drive read only permanently