Delete retropie

[y2kn]

I have RetroPie installed, I want to delete it for another project but when I am formatting the SD card it says that the device is write protected

I need help urgent

[Folly]

@y2kn

A possibility is that your RetroPie image somehow got corrupted then it will say so on startup.
As far as I know it will then make the sd-card write-protected.
It will then ask you to check the image as root. and then you need to do some commands as root user or press ctrl+d as I can recall.
As far as I know it will then make the sd-card writable again, if you have some luck.

An other possibility is that you SD-card is damaged and not repairable.
The sd-card will then write-protect itself.
This is a more likely possibility as the sd-card do not have a great lifetime. (1 - 3 years approximately)
If so, then you need to buy a new one.

I personally use an usb-harddrive which are bigger and have a much longer lifetime.

[PRAEst76]

@y2kn It's worth checking you haven't simply knocked the write protect switch on the card into the "protected" position on the card itself. Simple, but easy to overlook.

[Ashpool]

@y2kn from what/where/how are you trying to format the card? In my experience, by using a micro-sd/full-size-sd-cartridge-adapter (or however those may be called) there are times/ports/windows-systems which are recognizing such a micro-sd-in-full-size-sd-cartidge either via external usb-cardreader or via build-in-front-panel-cardreaders as locked, even if the adapter-cartridge is set to writable... sometimes (for external card-readers) depluging,repluging helped, sometimes it worked on a different usb-port... On certain machines/ports it seem to be a gamble for micro-sd in full-size-cartride, on other machines I never experienced it (even with the same external card-readers). Still, those observations are the minority of all cases [accessing a micro-sd card by card-readers] observed - and if the problem persists on a particular card, most propably @Folly explanation may nail it.
Btw. have you tried booting raspberry os (or another desktop os) from usb, then inserting the sd-card and checked what gparted (maybe needed to be installed via apt(manager of choice)) is reporting and maybe, instead of just formating, it would be possible to (re)write (the/)a new partition table and a fresh partition to it.

P.S.: You really haven't tried to format the card from a OS running/booted via that card, or?