My recently purchased SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 Flash Drive - 128GB (Model Number: SDCZ48-128G-U46) keeps showing it is write-protected. I am not able to find a place to unlock it. Please suggest it.
@jorj
Did you purchase the drive from SanDisk Store or authorized reseller?
Have you checked our knowledge base articles?
(Get Support for Your SSDs and Flash Products | SanDisk)
Try this one.
Have you opened a Support Case?
If not, contact SanDisk Technical Support for assistance.
(Contact Support | SanDisk)
I purchased it from BestBuy, an authorized dealer.
Since you purchased it from BestBuy (an authorized dealer), you should still be covered under warranty. If the drive remains write-protected after trying the troubleshooting steps from SanDisk’s support articles, consider the following:
- Confirm if Diskpart can remove write protection (
attributes disk clear readonly). - Try formatting the drive (backup data first).
- Check with BestBuy – If the drive is defective, they may offer a replacement.
- Contact SanDisk Support for warranty assistance if needed.
A lot of SanDisk users have run into the same “write-protected” issue, and there’s a detailed guide that helped many of them fix it. It walks through how to remove write protection from USB drives on Windows 10. Might be worth checking out.
You can remove write protection from the flash drive by following steps such as running third‑party utilities, clearing read‑only attributes, or editing the Windows Registry.(This detailed tutorial might be helpful: How to Remove Write Protection from an SD Card).
