Flash Drive Locked

[howto]

Kingston 32 GB Data Traveler DT101G2 (genuine)
Worked fine late Wed morning.
Thurs morning I cannot...
- copy from/to it
- delete anything
- format it
Error: "the disk is write protected"

Tested on 4 'puters...
2 -w7-64-ult
1 -xp
1 -w2kpro

Tried this...
- file explorer
- 'puter mgmnt
- dos format
- hp format tool
All fail...
"the disk is write protected"

Google search has a few hits....
answers.microsoft.com
suggested a regedit
tried and failed.

Saw another thread on Unbuntiu forum.
Said to use gparted.
Some commands are greek...
obviuosly written for experienced *nix users.
I'm a total *nix noob.
But I do have Herins Boot CD on disk...
And am willing to give it a try.

Alreadly spent 3+ hours on this,
drive is 6 months old, cost 580 baht,
has 6 vids and 6 mp3.
They are copies, so fine to lose these.

Suppose I could RMA it to Kingston,
or toss it and buy a better flash drive.

Advice-Suggestions welcome

[ronz28]

Had a problem like that years ago and I had to use their or windows software to stop the connection to that usb port with flash drive & "safely remove the hardware" or I would get that message. It may offer to stop several drives and I just select the one that identifies my USB flash memory stick and click on that one and wait for the message that "it is now safe to remove the drive" and then pull out the memory stick. I think all I did was go through that process and I again got access to the flash drive but its been a long time ago and I always stop the USB flash drive now first with the icon that has a green arrow in the bottom right hand corner of the computer screen that you may have to move the cursor to hover over to show the hidden icon.

Edited December 13, 2013 by ronz28

[Crossy]

It certainly seems to be a fairly common problem

Have you tried plugging in the drive and then 'stopping' it (safely remove) as ronz says?

[daniel2183]

Try Swiss knife, it's mainly a fat32 format utility but I have had the same problem as you a few times and this had managed to format the drive and the I just reformatted in ntfs after

[phil2]

happens to me a lot on Ubuntu. Solution is to remove and reinsert several times, or reformat with gparted. Same flash drive always works on windows. Happened again just a few days ago because I interrupted a very slow file transfer.

[RKASA]

Sometimes just doing a restart with the drive plugged in clears the fault and allows it to start working again.

[phil2]

You have to unmount it first before you will be able to reformat it. You should google for a solution. I only use my windows partition only when it's absolutely necessary.

[MJCM]

Maybe this helps: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/storage/3456666/how-format-write-protected-flash-drive/

[phil2]

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/usb-hard-drive-is-write-protected/4d52294c-1b8b-4a3c-9209-09bdee257668

[schondie]

Easiest solution is to right click the USB and then format. Click "Yes" and it should be okay in all computers.

I've had similar, a USB worked on one of my PCs but failed on another. I ended up using the Linux command lines to change the permissions.

It's easier to just reformat (FAT32) and start again. Don't forget to back up stuff if you don't want to lose it.

[howto]

OK

Everything has been tried, and failed.

Including GParted under *nix.

This flash drive is burnt toast.

It's done, put a fork in it.

T'anks to all whom replied.

I learned a few things, hope you did too.

Cheers.