Remove encryption from USB flash drive

Question

It all started when I was attempting to format my PNY USB drive because it was full of junk. When it asked me what type of file system, I selected FAT but there was a checkbox below that said "Encrypt" and I accidently checked it and continue.

I had no choice but to come up with a passphrase for it, and so I did, thinking I was able to remove that encryption. But after that at Disk Utility I thought I would find a "Remove Encryption" button or something like that but I didn't.

I tried formatting it to remove the encryption but it gives me an error:

Error Formatting, The device is busy"
Detail>>> One or more block devices are holding /dev/sdb/.

I am stuck, what should I do?

Solution

To remove the encryption, you should format the partition. This is the steps:

1. Open Disk Utility
2. Click Unmount Volume below the drive label
3. Click on Format Volume

If steps above doesn't format the drive, use Gparted. (To install Gparted, open terminal / Ctrl+Alt+T then type sudo apt-get install gparted).

1. Open Disk Utility
2. Click Unmount Volume below the drive label
3. Close the Disk Utility
4. Open Gparted
5. Select your drive on /dev/sdx (you can know your drive via the drive size)
6. Right click the partition
7. Click Format to and select the filesystem you want to use.

Note:
The error Error Formatting, The device is busy shown because you didn't unmount the volume.

Comments

[Admin]

I had the same problem. The solution I found was to first lock (make data unavailable) the device in the disk utility application. Then I could delete/format the partition. Hope this can help someone in the future.

[lambda23]

Have you tried the first way? Can you access your flash drive data?