Is there a way to force format write protected pendrive

Question

My USB is a Sandisk Cruzer 8 GB drive with USB 2.0. It says it's write protected when I try to format it.

Is there a way to force format it ?

I try'd some of this ways :

varun@varun-pc ~ $ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for varun:
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x616d49a5

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      718847      358400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          718848   204799999   102040576    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       204800000   567169023   181184512    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4       567174886   976768064   204796589+   f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5       567174888   575753534     4289323+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       630197883   976768064   173285091    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Partition 6 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda7       575754240   630196223    27220992   83  Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 8004 MB, 8004304896 bytes
19 heads, 5 sectors/track, 164562 cylinders, total 15633408 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000570f2

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        2048    15632383     7815168    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
varun@varun-pc ~ $ umount /dev/adb1
umount: /dev/adb1 is not mounted (according to mtab)
varun@varun-pc ~ $ sudo fsck.vfat -f -p /dev/sdb1
dosfsck 3.0.13, 30 Jun 2012, FAT32, LFN
Currently, only 1 or 2 FATs are supported, not 0.

varun@varun-pc ~ $ sudo fsck.vfat -f -v /dev/sdb1
dosfsck 3.0.13 (30 Jun 2012)
dosfsck 3.0.13, 30 Jun 2012, FAT32, LFN
Currently, only 1 or 2 FATs are supported, not 0.

Solution

You can use GParted to format partitions.

Unmount all the partitions on the USB stick, and then delete them. You can then create partitions as you like - creating a new partition table first (under Device) may also help. The is some documentation here if you need any.

This should effectively wipe any partitions and any data in them. - remember to click this green button, or it won't do anything :

Be sure what you are formatting - the computer's primary hard drive is usually sda, and may contain important things (e.g. dual booted windows)

Comments

[dman]

does not work on exfat

[Wilf]

@dman - It does in my experience - except creating and modifying exfat requires special drivers AFAIK (probably askubuntu.com/a/374627/178596), though support is still a bit limited

[dman]

gparted read only error.

[Wilf]

@dman - that my be due to it being corrupted or a write protection (especially if it does not normally work in other programs). You could ask a question (you would need to supply device info, and errors that occur like in dmesg.

[Wilf]

Or it may be tagged as in use by another system (or the system itself if its a live install)