Read Only USB Drive can't be erased/re-set

Question

I bought a 32 GB flash drive several months ago, and after using it for a month or two, something happened to it. Right now, the drive has become read only.

I tried using Mac OS X's Disk Utility, tried using the Windows Disk Management MMC snapin, and tried to erase it via the terminal on both OS X and Ubuntu. None of these worked to get it formatted so I could use it. They both keep saying that it wouldn't work, and couldn't be done because the drive was read only.

Any other ways that I can try to erase and re-set my flash drive?

Solution

Maybe there is something such as a button on your flash body to make it Read-Only.

If no, Try the below steps in Windows :

• Insert your USB (4GB+ preferable) stick to the system and backup all the data from the USB as we are going to format the USB to make it as bootable.
• Open elevated Command Prompt. To do this, type in CMD in Start menu search field and hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter. Alternatively, navigate to Start → All programs → Accessories → right click on Command Prompt and select run as administrator.

• When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:

  DISKPART  and hit enter.
  LIST DISK and hit enter.
  

  Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. my USB drive disk no is Disk 1.

• In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.

  SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)
  CLEAN
  CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
  SELECT PARTITION 1
  ACTIVE
  FORMAT FS=NTFS
  ASSIGN
   EXIT
  

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For SanDisk flash memories,

This is a known hardware error and can't be fixed. Sandisk is aware of the issue, although there is no official recall for the product. This is an offical answer if you contact customer service:

I understand that you are getting write protection error while accessing your Cruzer flash drive. The flash drive has detected a potential fault and has become write protected to prevent data loss. There is no method to fix this. You will need to backup your data and replace the flash drive.

Our team of developers is in combination with the OS developers looking into a solution to resolve this issue.

Please note that only a minor percentage of users are experiencing the write protection issue and these are the customers posting on the internet to find a solution.

Solution 1: Return to where you bought and get a refund (as others usb drives might have the same issue) Solution 2: Contact Sandisk customer service and get a refund, for the same reasons

Comments

[Wutnaut]

What brand is it? I've seen a lot of manufacturer's provide a download that can format and update drivers for USB drives, maybe that can help.

[Nate]

SanDisk. I check the website and there were no downloads available. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[Nate]

At step 4 when I entered "clean", it gave me the following error: "DiskPart has encountered an error: the media is write protected."

[Ebrahim Ghasemi]

@Nate I searched for your problem, And what I got, has attached to above answer (In Update section) :( sorry about that!