Windows SD card write protected?

I experienced multiple times weird Windows (even on Windows11) behaviour where for instance it would format the SD card, but still complain afterwards it could not write to the SD card. I Google-d, maar most pages mention the usual fixes that did not work for me. So on this page i plan to archive what works for me; so that i don't have to Google through all the pages that don't work for me, and maybe it will help others ;-).

I found i often could edit the SD (add a file, change a file name) fine on a Macbook. So if you have a (friend with a) Macbook, try that as well! Probably also works with machines running Linux ;-). Hope Microsoft will fix this at some point.  

On https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-fix-my-micro-SD-card-that-became-a-read-only-memory-card/answer/Timothy-Takemoto-1 i found (and make a copy here in case the source at some moment disappears):

"I use SD cards (in readers) as USB hard disks since they are cheaper than USB hard disks. I am religious about using the Windows status bar disconnect thing before removing my SD card/Reader but all the same it sometimes ends up read only.

I used unlocker, http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/, to kill all processes connected with my disk.

Then a Free tool from EaseUS (Tool M), https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/fix-cannot-format-usb-flash-drive-error.html, to remove write protection,

Then I formatted the disk twice, first with the above free nagware tool custom disk http://www.authorsoft.com/usb-disk-storage-format-tool.html formatter (“verbose” which takes hours) which did not finish, then secondly with the windows native disk formatter which till I had use the above free tool would crash, so it seems to be a two stage process.

Sometimes the SD card is read only in my USB readers, but writeable from a SD card port on my PC.

The Windows native method mentioned by others does not always work ( Start button> search box >cmd (right click, run as admin) > diskpart > list disk > select disk X > clear disk attributes readonly ), even when the card is in the SD port, in which I can write to it!

I have found that the format tool here which is free nagware http://www.authorsoft.com/usb-disk-storage-format-tool.html has a check function (Correct errors, Scan drive) which may cure the problem without the need for format. It can also format your cards.

Similarly I have found that the free open Testdisk https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download has worked in the past - in that just using it allowed me to write again to my disk.

I have sometimes found that toggling the physical write protect switch can cure the problem, and sometimes the contacts get corroded.

If you have to format there are a variety of options that I mention here but they do not always work. I get through about one large SD card a year due to this problem: https://forums.sandisk.com/t5/All-SanDisk-USB-Flash-Drives/How-to-remove-READ-ONLY-option-from-Dual-USB-Drive/m-p/364430#M13197 .

I am inclined to think that Windows is freezing up SD cards, by being more strict without how it tolerates (or does not tolerate) broken file systems since Windows has started selling cloud storage."