Win32 Disk Imager – Error 5

Problem

I was building a new Retropie image for my RaspberryPi this week when I hit a hurdle. I attempted to write the RetroPie image (.img) onto the SD Card via Win32 Disk Imager using Microsoft Windows 10 when the following error occurred:

An error occurred when attempting to lock the volume. Error 5: Access is denied.

The SD card looked fine in Windows, I could see it and write to it from within Windows file explorer. I also tried the following which did not work:

• Formatting the SD Card as NTFS
• Formatting the SD card as FAT32
• Using an alternate SD card reader

I come across a couple of solutions and outlined them below, solution number 2 worked for me.

Solution 1

The first solution is a simple one and some people have reported that the problem was fixed for them by selecting the “Read only allocated partitions” checkbox within Win32 Disk Imager:

Solution 2

The solution that worked for me was to use a program called SD Memory Card Formatter. Once I formatted the card using this tool, Win32 Disk Imager worked fine and committed the Retropie image to the SD card.

I’ve outlined the steps below:

1. Download SD Memory Card Formatter from here.
2. Find and Open SD Memory Card Formatter

3. It should default to your SD Card – confirm that it’s the correct card if you have multiple readers connected to your machine.
4. Update the formatting options to “Overwrite format“
5. Set the Volume label to any name you like
6. Click Format

Depending on the size of your SD Card this process may take a while. I had a Class 10 32Gb card and it took just on 15 minutes to complete.

Once the format is complete, re-open Win32 Disk Imager and try copy the image again – it should work this time!

Feel free to post a comment below if you have any issues – Good Luck.