Laptop shows SD Cards as Read Only

[Ethameshep]

I tried using the SD card reader in my XPS 13 9360 (Win10 64-bit) for the first time and it said the card was write protected.  I tried some other cards and got the same result, but they all work fine on other computers.  I cannot manually change the attributes of the files and I tried the registry and diskpart methods to change write protection with no luck.  After an hour, Dell tech support told me the problem was not hardware related and thus not covered by the basic warranty.  They want $200 to upgrade the warranty so the software department can look at it.

Any Ideas?  Am I right in assuming the issue is not Windows or the cards?

[SuperCloneRanger]

Try this

 

[SuperCloneRanger]

If you already have StorageDevicePolicies folder you dont need to create it, just change the WriteProtect value from 1 to 0

[Ethameshep]

26 minutes ago, SuperCloneRanger said:

Try this

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but I tried this already.  Should have been more specific in my post.

[SuperCloneRanger]

My bad i must have missed that bit, unlikely to help but before you try anything else first try resetting your bios.

since you have already tried all the stuff i can think of and google says(i assume i look at the same stuff you did) in windows my next step would be trying a different operating system to determine whether the problem is software or hardware. luckily you won't have to install anything or remove windows, you can create a usb bootable linux os to test on.

 

Download linux mint(or if you know linux pick you preferred distro)

https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=246

 

Use etcher to put iso onto usb drive

https://etcher.io/

 

Boot into the live linux enviroment, i think boot menu on dells is F12 or change boot order in bios. test your sd card/reader, if it works in linux you know windows is to blame and unfortunately without knowing where else to look you best bet may be reinstalling windows.

[Ethameshep]

Just tried this and it is still read only, so it's probably the laptop like I feared.  I tried with a USB adapter and it worked fine in Windows and Linux.  I can probably live with this as I don't use SD cards that often, but I'm disappointed and frustrated with Dell.

[Ethameshep]

Looking through the BIOS, there is an option called "Secure Digital (SD) Card Read-Only Mode" but it is not checked.  Updated the BIOS from 1.3.7 to 2.6.2 but no change.