How to remove media write protection in external hard drive

[solegrin]

Hello, I would like to ask how can I re-access or retrieve my files from my western digital external HD 500gb.

I can initialize the disk because it says, "The Media is write protected"

Please help me.
I attached a screen shot of my problem.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/6683/huhuf.png

 

[michael0100]

Type in "DiskPart" in command line.
Type in "list disk" in command line to show all disks in this machine.
Use "select" to set the focus to the specified partition.
For example "select disk 1".
Use "clean" command to remove GPT disk from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors.
Go back to Disk Management, you can see GPT disk is "Not Initialized" now.
Within Disk Management, right click on disk info, choose "Initialize Disk", You can see GPT disk is "Unallocated" now.
Right click on disk info, choose "New Partition…", follow Partition Wizard and format it. Now you are able to use the disk in Windows XP.
!

just saying thanks, none of the idea suggestions work for my issue, but this fixed it. Windows 7 with a nexstar raid external.

 

[solarx]

This how to remove "write protection" from Mediamax USB hard drive. Download the free Windows app "MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1".
Right click on the target drive. Select "wipe disk". There are multiple choices. Select "slow" write 0 and 1. Then click the "apply" button at the top left corner. This will take several hours. It will write 0 on every sector, then will start from the beginning and write 1 on every sector.
When it's done, right click on the target drive. Select "format", click apply.
Windows Explorer will now see this drive. It's now ready for normal use.

https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html