Recently my computer got really slow and hung up. So I restarted it. Then I couldn't boot to Windows. Now I'm formatting and trying to go fresh but ran into an issue: it won't let me format. It just says Virtual Disk Service error: The media is write-protected. I am entering diskpart while in the Windows install home screen. Any help?
According to your description, the "The media is write-protected." error showed up when you revived your slow and sluggish computer, which made you unable to format the media. This might be because the disk recognizes some dangerous message, so it turns into the write protection mode to prevent your data from missing or changing. Fortunately, this article will offer tested and reliable solutions to help you cope with the difficulty. If you want to fix the write protection error on the PC, using Command Prompt is suggested, which can help you eliminate the problem.
Follow the steps carefully to remove the write protection from your media:
Step 1. Open the search box and type cmd.
Step 2. Hit "Enter" after each of the following command lines.
Note: Replace # with the number of your write-protected media.
Step 3. Type exit.
The first method is quite complicated, and if you are a novice, I prefer to introduce another popular method: Qiling Disk Master Free. With the Write Protection Removal tool, which is the killer feature of Qiling Disk Master, you can unlock the write-protected device quickly. Moreover, Qiling Disk Master can format the disk after removing the write protection from it.
The detailed steps about how to format a write-protected disk by using Qiling Disk Master are as follows:
Step 1. Download and install the Qiling Disk Master.
Step 2. Click the "Toolkit" section, and click "Write Protection."
Step 3. Select your write-protected virtual disk, and hit "Disable."
Step 4. Open "Partition Manager" and find the disk you want to format. Then, Right-click and select the "Format" option.
In addition, the Qiling Disk Master can finish other tasks, such as managing partitions, cloning disks, recovering partitions, etc. For more information about being unable to format a write-protected media, you can read the following articles to find the answer:
Read More: How to Format Write Protected Device