USB Drives Write Protected on my MacBook Pro

They're probably formatted NTFS, which Mac OS X can read but not write. You can just reformat the drive as FAT32 (MS-DOS format in Disk Utility) and it will work just fine with both your Mac and Windows systems.

First make sure there is nothing valuable on the USB.

Go to Disk Utility, which is in Applications/Utilities.

Click on the USB. Click on Erase Tab.

Make sure the MS-DOS setting is selected. Then click Erase Free Space.

That should do it.

Plop your USB in a Windows machine, download and instal Rufus..

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

With the default settings do a Quick Format with the USB that Apple won't let you do anything with. It cleans your USB and removes

the pesky write protection completely. Plop your USB back in your Mac and erase and normal functionality is restored.

Hi

I was never able to get mine resolved. I even tried using some PC programs on a Windows machine, but couldn't get it fixed.

Double check to make sure there is not a tiny switch on yours that got moved. Sometimes they are under the plastic handle.

I would worry that the drive is failing and you may want to replace it or have a backup ready.

Fortunately they are going down in price all the time. I hate to throw away things, but sometimes we all have to move on.

Any solution found? 🙂

I have the exact same issue as described above with all of the formatting options on Disk Utility grayed out. The USB used to work fine - allowing me to delete and save files - and it's the same Mac I've always used it on. No idea why/how it suddenly became write-protected/read-only!

My USB will not let me click on any of them options so i am not able to erase what is already on it, i tried to verify the disk and then repair it however the repair box is also greyed out so will not let me click on it... Any ideas please?

What is the current format of the drive please.

Hey, thanks for the fast response :-) It's a shame you couldn't get it fixed. Such a bizarre issue to spontaneously occur, eh.

I can't find a little switch anywhere, so I guess I may have to admit defeat. Fortunately it's only a 32GB pen drive so not a huge sacrifice, although it had been a trusty tool until this issue.

Csound1, all of the options are grayed out - both 'Erase' and 'Erase Free Space'. On all of the tabs the only option that is available is 'Verify Disk' and even that produces no further options. The current format is MS-DOS (FAT32).

I had to finally contact the manufacturer for a restore app. So I'd suggest that once you've tried all of the forum options like Windows via the regedit, disk part, or even Mac disk utility. Or a third party restore app.

Here is an example:

What happens when you right click the USB, select Get Info? Does it let you change the Sharing and Permissions?

My drive is doing the same.

I have the same problem. Did you find a solution?

If you want to erase the drive you select 'Erase' not 'Erase Free Space'