The USB drive is read only even write protection is off

Question

I have made my Transcend USB 3.0 pendrive into bootable ARCH-LINUX key using dd command. After that it become read only and I was not able to use it. So I formatted as MBR with NTFS partition using Disk Utility in Ubuntu and there were no errors, but when I try to use it, it saying read-only and not allowing to copy anything.Here is the screenshot of the error.

I had tried reformatting as GPT,the same error. I have tried EXT4 also.I have ran fsck command also, it says everything is clear. The following is the output of dmesg | tail -n25

[ 5399.004036] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:2c:41:38:db:7e:b7:08:00 SRC=0.0.0.0 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2 
[ 5413.351497] type=1400 audit(1386569943.739:66): apparmor="DENIED" operation="capable" parent=1 profile="/usr/sbin/cupsd" pid=8956 comm="cupsd" pid=8956 comm="cupsd" capability=36  capname="block_suspend"
[ 5438.323077] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:2c:41:38:c8:82:00:08:00 SRC=169.144.44.1 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=1 ID=31744 PROTO=2 
[ 5463.333598] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:2c:41:38:db:7e:b9:08:00 SRC=0.0.0.0 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2 
[ 5472.271930] usb 2-1.5: USB disconnect, device number 3
[ 5479.546220] usb 2-1.5: new high-speed USB device number 4 using ehci_hcd
[ 5479.639030] usb 2-1.5: New USB device found, idVendor=8564, idProduct=1000
[ 5479.639039] usb 2-1.5: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 5479.639044] usb 2-1.5: Product: Mass Storage Device
[ 5479.639047] usb 2-1.5: Manufacturer: JetFlash
[ 5479.639052] usb 2-1.5: SerialNumber: 1250498862
[ 5479.639699] scsi17 : usb-storage 2-1.5:1.0
[ 5480.636704] scsi 17:0:0:0: Direct-Access     JetFlash Transcend 8GB    1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6
[ 5480.637548] sd 17:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 5480.638034] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] 15433728 512-byte logical blocks: (7.90 GB/7.35 GiB)
[ 5480.638406] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 5480.638415] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[ 5480.638771] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: disabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 5480.650924]  sdb: sdb1
[ 5480.652992] sd 17:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 5480.798379] EXT4-fs (sdb1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
[ 5486.400055] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:2c:41:38:db:7e:ae:08:00 SRC=0.0.0.0 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2 
[ 5486.826155] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:2c:41:38:db:7e:af:08:00 SRC=0.0.0.0 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2 
[ 5487.220538] [UFW BLOCK] IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=01:00:5e:00:00:01:2c:41:38:db:7e:ba:08:00 SRC=0.0.0.0 DST=224.0.0.1 LEN=32 TOS=0x00 PREC=0xC0 TTL=1 ID=0 DF PROTO=2 
[ 5514.209561] psmouse serio1: Touchpad at isa0060/serio1/input0 lost sync at byte 6

Update: This is weird, I have formatted as FAT, I have checked the permissions, it is normal (-rw-r--r--). I have opened Terminal and used mkdir and a directory is created. I am able to create files also from cmdline, but whenever I try to access through nautilus , the error mentioned at the start is occuring. I have checked in my friend's laptop, there is no problem. Still can't understand the problem.

Solution

Format the USB drive into FAT32 filesystem using GParted partition editor. After you do that, remove it from the PC, reboot the PC, and then re-insert the USB drive. Now it should work.

Try the below command to give read, write, execute permissions to your USB:

sudo chmod 777 /media/usbpartition-name

Comments

[Admin]

yes! you can recover your pendrive. Try formatting from a VM ware or virtualbox using backtrack or any other OS. if u couldnt format then try changing read only properties for owner and then come back to real window(non virtual), do format. it will work fine.

[saiki4116]

I am on my office laptop,and I don't have root access, I will try that in Personal Laptop. is there any difference , if we partition using Disk utility and Gparted ..? In Windows, I am unable to format it as it is saying USB device not recognized

[ASCIIbetical]

just a piece of advice, if you can access windows, can you work your way around diskpart.exe in cmd.exe ?

[saiki4116]

In windows, it's not getting recognized, So I was unable to format in windows. I think this is random bug in Nautilus, after a reboot, everything is fine.

[David Foerster]

Please don't recommend 0777 a.k.a. “please-hack-my-system-and-destroy-my-data” permissions for no apparent reason! There's almost never a reason to do that because it can be avoided with more sensible modifications like changing (group) ownership. −1