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I have a HP netbook that's at least three years old and running Windows 7 Starter. It has a built-in SDHC card slot.

I have a couple of 8 gig SDHC cards that I switch between my digital camera and the netbook. They're full-sized cards like the computer slot is. Not MiniSD or MicroSD. They are from different manufacturers and were bought at different times, but each is now a few years old.

I've gone through half a dozen point-and-click cameras and none of them have ever complained that the SD card is write protected. I never set the write-protect tabs to "locked".

Yet increasingly when I insert the SD card into the computer it will mount as read-only. It used to happen once in a while but now it happens about two times out of three.

The only workaround I have found so far is to eject the SD card and reinsert it. This works about half the time.

Is this a known bug in Windows or in certain HP netbooks? Is there a known fix? If not is there a more reliable workaround?

Hennes
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hippietrail
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    If you are using a size adapter to make it fit in the laptop, then the adapter itself could be damaged. – Nean Der Thal Nov 30 '14 at 10:27
  • No adapter. The netbook has an SDHC slot - I'll add that to the question. Also both the slot and the cards are full-size, not mini or micro SD. – hippietrail Nov 30 '14 at 10:32
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    Have you tried using those cards in any other computers besides your HP? – Vinayak Nov 30 '14 at 16:50
  • @Vinayak: They're hardly ever in other computers because the ones I most often come into contact with don't have SD card slots and also because I'm a bit wary of picking up viruses that way. I have in the past used them on computers via a USB to SDHC adapter and can't remember having these problems but can't be sure. – hippietrail Nov 30 '14 at 16:54
  • I think I might know what the problem is. I've had this happen several times with my old Acer notebook. Sometimes when I stick the card in, the write-protect switch gets depressed so the card is mounted as read-only. I don't lock it myself, but while pushing the card inside, the switch gets depressed. A crude solution is to unlock the card and stick a small piece of tape over the write-protect switch. – Vinayak Nov 30 '14 at 17:00
  • I've checked the write-protect switch many times and have never found it to have gone into the "on" state. So if it *sometimes* locks when pushing the card in the it *always* unlocks again when ejecting. And does so for both cards. This seems too unlikely IMHO. – hippietrail Nov 30 '14 at 17:07
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    Does this only happen with SDHC cards? Do you face the same problem with microSD cards inside SD adapters? – Vinayak Nov 30 '14 at 17:19
  • I don't have any mini- or microSD cards or adapters to try. But I think I might still have a smaller capacity SD (not HC) card I could try. – hippietrail Dec 01 '14 at 02:33
  • It's worth a shot, I guess. Also, did you check for any driver updates for your card reader? – Vinayak Dec 01 '14 at 11:37

6 Answers6

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I've often seen the read-only problem arise from not properly unmounting/ejecting a USB drive/card before removing it, leading to a corrupted filesystem that only wants to mount as read-only until it's chkdsk'd or fsck'd.

Always unmounting / "Safely Remove"-ing devices and even waiting an extra few seconds seems to greatly lessen the problem occuring. Also when I formatted the drives to something other than FAT32, like NTFS or ext3, something with a journal, it seemed to help immensely too, then even if an error occurs it's very minor, no files or filenames are lost, while FAT32 could loose ALL the filenames + some files.

Cards & USB drives do also sometimes start to be "read-only" when they start to fail... or the card reader or USB cable/HUB/port starts to fail...

Xen2050
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  • Many parts of my HP mini have started to fail over the last couple of years so now I've pretty much decided that's the problem in my particular case. But it still only happens rarely for now. – hippietrail Dec 01 '15 at 00:13
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I have this same problem. Looks like you have to disable "quick removal" under "removal policy"

Right click, go to properties>hardware> select the drive in question > select properties at bottom right of dialogue box > Policies > select "Better performance (default)"

Elly
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  • I've often seen the read-only problem arise from not properly unmounting/ejecting a drive before removing it. This "disable quick removal" answer sounds like it would be *worse* for the card, making it take even longer before it's ready to be ejected. How/why would this be a good solution? – Xen2050 Nov 30 '15 at 17:58
  • I tried this method and it didn't work for me on my Dell laptop. – GoYun.Info Dec 10 '19 at 21:33
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In my case, it was a combination of a weak locking switch on a micro SD card adapter and a tight SD card slot. I made sure the switch was unlocked, but at some point realized that when I remove the card, the switch was in the locked position. I've filed the switch a bit, made sure it doesn't move when I insert it into the slot, and the problem is gone.

piotrek
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Writing this because I had to figure it out myself

If the lock switch is in the write position and you can confirm that the SD card works in other devices, check the drive in diskpart. If the first line says "Current Read-only State: Yes", and the second line says "Read-only : No" that means that something is wrong with the physical mechanism that tells your computer if the card is locked or not. In your SD card reader there should be a switch on the left-hand side, I fixed this issue by applying gentle pressure to the part of this switch that the lock switch would normally exert pressure against (the lock switch is just a piece of plastic sandwiched between the two case halves and usually doesn't affect the card in any way).

Toto
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FFF
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https://www.top-password.com/blog/enable-or-disable-folder-options-in-windows/

YOU CAN THANK ME LATER ! - The Solution is hidden within gpedit.msc

After sifting through all the frankly useless 'help' out there ( e.g. unlock the write protect tab etc, change the registry keys etc...), it's simply a Windows 7 or Windows 10 setting.

Thank you to top-password.com/blog/enable-or-disable-folder-options-in-windows/ for sending me in the right direction.

Windows 10 try the following: - User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > File Explorer Windows 7 try this: User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer

I tweaked the settings " Remove Security Tab" and "Prevent Access to Drives from My Computer" and then BOOM - disk write permissions returned to my SDHC Card in the Card Reader Drive, H:

Also in Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Removable Storage Access > Setting Removable Disks Deny Write Access (select Disabled)

Arron E
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Since ejecting the SD card and reinserting it works, I suppose that it's your built-in card reader having issues with SD card's write-protect switch. Try applying scotch tape to the card and see, if this works:

Place a piece of tape, masking, electrical, sometimes transparent will work. Be very precise in placing the tape over the notch, but not over the brass connector on the opposite side. Then place it in your card reader, format it, read and write files to your desire.

...

If you get the same error again after applying the tape, add a second layer. Double check that you did not cover the connection edge, and the plastic tab is closet to the side you insert in the device you are using.

Sometimes it takes several tries, but it will work with patience. If you have existing files on the SD card, insert it, right click, select properties. Then remove the "Read Only" check by the box and try to delete or add files then. If it says Disk Write Protected, then check the tape again.

This video shows how to do it:

https://youtu.be/QrBI0dZLYv4?t=1m24s

beatcracker
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