Internal Hard Drives Became Read Only

Hi. Method 1 did not work. Method 2 is very unclear. I had to google the first command: 'ATTR DISK CLEAR READONLY’ to figure out what to do as you left out the previous steps of "List disk" and so forth. I tried that and that also did not work. I don't know what to do with the  ‘ATTR VOLUME CLEAR READONLY’.

Thanks

Arron

How do you know they are read only. If windows system files are read only you wouldn't be able to use your device.

Can you show a screenshot of what you see that shows read only.

Hi. On closer inspection it seems to only be the folders themselves which are read only, the files haven't been affected.

A screenshot isn't necessary, if I right click any folder (I have checked many non-system folders and haven't found any exceptions), go to properties then at the bottom where it says "Attributes" the "Read Only" checkbox is ticked. If I untick it then click apply it changes nothing because if I check again then it still says read only.

There's a difference between:

and:

Do you know what it is?

Here's your hint: Why does Hyper-V have a check mark, while Internet Information Services has a black box?

Wow! Never realised you couldn't make folders themselves read only, just the files within them. Thanks! With this I was able to determine it was nothing to do with Windows at all, but the program Lightroom I was trying to export from.

Hi ArronBlocksidge,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Community.

I can understand the situation must be difficult for you when the internal drives act as ‘Read Only’ and do not work as they should.

Please answer these questions to get clarity on this issue:

1. Are you aware of any changes made to the PC prior to this issue?
2. Which security software is installed on the PC?

Let us follow these methods to check if that helps us with this issue:

Method 1: To view or to remove the Read-only or the System attributes of folders in Windows:

1. Click Start, type cmd. Right-click on CMD and select ‘run as administrator’.
2. To view the syntax for the Attrib command, type attrib /? In the command prompt window.

To remove the Read-only attribute and to set the System attribute, use the following command:

attrib -r +s drive:<path><foldername>

For example, to remove the Read-only attribute and to set the System attribute for the C:\Test folder, use the following command:

attrib -r +s c:\test

Note: Be aware that some programs may not operate correctly with folders for which the System attribute and the Read-only attribute are set. Therefore, use the following command to remove these attributes:

attrib -r -s drive:<path><foldername>

For example, to remove both the Read-only and the System attributes from the C:\Test folder, use the following command:

attrib -r -s c:\test

If the Run command is not listed on the Start menu, do the following:

Press Windows key + R to get the run window.

Once this is done, restart the computer and check if that works for you.

Method 2: Alternatively, you can also use Disk part commands to clear the read-only attributes of your disk or volume.

1. Open Command Prompt in Admin mode. Click Start, type CMD. Right click on CMD and select ‘run as administrator’. This will open CMD in admin mode.
2. Type ‘ATTR DISK CLEAR READONLY’ and press enter.
3. Type ‘ATTR VOLUME CLEAR READONLY’ and press enter.

Once this is done, restart the computer and check if that works for you.

Let us know the result of the steps performed to help you further.

Awaiting your reply.

Regards,

Srimadhwa B

Microsoft Community-Moderator

There's a difference between:

and:

Do you know what it is?

Here's your hint: Why does Hyper-V have a check mark, while Internet Information Services has a black box?