How to Disable the Write Protection on Dell Windows 10 USB Recovery Sticks

How to Disable the Write Protection on Dell Windows 10 USB Recovery Sticks - ROUND 4



The world is full of different kinds a people, but one thing that seems to bring us all together is that everyone wants to be able to write to their Dell USB recovery drive. I'm not yet convinced that this one little slice of common ground can end wars and dispel years of hatred, but the one thing I am sure of is that with just the slightest effort... we can all write to these things.
Tom Weberposted the solution in the round 3 post. Thanks Tom. All I did below was take his solution and add some screen clips. All the credit should go to him.

As of the time of this post, this works for all Dell Windows 10 USB recovery flash drives.

Download MPALL_F1_7F00_DL07_v503_0A.rar from Mega.nz and uncompress it to a folder. The Mega.nz decryption key is !3mpx__atjBu-zBVtxTlvsya-uiIsSFK7q5ddcULiCgw and the MD5 hash of the file is E37A0C352EFF3415E7DB2E6A6CF7F5EB. With this hash you should be able to verify that the file you downloaded is exactly the same as the file I uploaded. I can't guarantee anything else about this file. Use it at your own risk.

Caution! The following steps WILL DELETE EVERYTHING ON THE USB DRIVE!

Once you've downloaded and uncompressed the MPALL utility, drill down into the folder and run MPALL_F1_7F00_DL07_v503_0A.exe.



If you haven't already plugged your Dell USB stick in, plug it in now and click the Update button.




The USB drive should show up in one of the boxes. If it doesn't, try moving it to a different USB port and clicking the Update button again. Repeat as needed. Keep trying different USB ports until the drive shows up in the utility.

Once MPALL shows the USB device is connected, click the Setting button.




Select Basic Setting and New Setting and click OK.




In the settings window, click the Controller drop down and select PS2251-07. Select USB 2.0 or 3.0 from the Host Port drop down depending on what type of port you have the drive plugged into.

Check the Do ISP and Erase code block check boxes. Click Select to browse to the burner file BN07V502TAW.BIN and the firmware file FW07V50253TW.BIN in the MPALL_F1_7F00_DL07_v503_0A folder.

Next, under the Customise Setting section, uncheck the Auto Detect box and input the VID 0930 and PID 1400.




Your settings should look something like this. At this point, you can hit the Save button and close the settings window or click Save As and save the settings to an .ini file. With the .ini file you can quickly load the settings in the future either here, on the setting page, or in the drop down in the upper right of the main MPALL window.




Back at the main window, you might need to click Update again if your drive isn't displayed or is grayed out. When you're ready, click the Start button and relax.




After a few seconds, you should see your drive displayed in green and it should be writable.

This method works for now, but we've seen at least four iterations of these USB flash drives that require different software to low-level format. Something will change and we'll be back to square one again. Good luck.

 

And exactly why would we want to do this?

 

I did that because I need to use the usb flash memory 8GB for anything more useful, it contain an old system image no need for it any more. and many are needing the same.
The most important thing for me is the challenge, as you see it's not an easy process .

 

Asking for trouble...USB stick are inexpensive right now and doing what your doing will end up with nothing in return. The cost to get a USB stick to the cost to re-buying the Dell USB is cost prohibited and not the best smart move to do. I rather have a genuine Dell USB recovery stick for that reason and doing otherwise doesn't give any good return for the investment.

 

Also, think how much your data on those stick are worth?

Dell brought them on the cheap, they figured that they won't get many write cycles anyways, who cares they fail in 5 or 100 or1 billion cycles.
Sure they could of bought actual write once sticks but these are cheaper and required effort that most people won't do anyways.

 

Yes, maybe you are right, it's not about $ it was about the knowledge how to remove/create the protection, now I know how to protect all my USB flash drives because off this experiment.
cmd.exe: Command prompt (admin)
1- diskpart
2- list disk
3- select disk #
4- attributes disk set readonly (Create protection)
5- attributes disk clear readonly (Remove Protection)

it will be very safe for all those drives carrying OS from all platforms, to make sure it will not be effected by any harmful viruses or backdoors.

anyway it's just an experience with something new for me, I thought maybe some members can found it useful somehow.
Thanks for reading and for your kind contributions.

 

And that will stop whom from breaking it and using it as well?

Carry O/S for what? Not a smart move here either. Remember it's the user themselves whom uses the Admin/Owner account that permit the infections not the malware or virus that does the infecting.

Not really here...if someone wants to RO a USB they can go and find that info on the internet as well back in the days maybe. If your USB is so important they you have a backup of the USB and only take the one you don't have important data on to the outside and if you take the important one you keep it close to you and know where you using it at all time. Some common sense is what is needed first before your protection can be of any help.