Removing Write Protection

[adison024]

Greetings.

A year ago I had signed up an yearly course with an organisation. They gave me a pen drive with 29 GB of study material. I could access that material using another software (UserID / Login System) Quite useful it was. But now as the years duration has passed Im no longer allowed to login.

So, just wondering, can I delete all data and use it as a personal pen drive..?

If I right click on any content, there's no option for delete at all. If I just select all and press "Shift+Del" nothing happens. Formatting the disk give me an "Write Protection Error".

So is it even possible to format a pen drive that was made for the above stated purpose..?

Iv'e allready tried cmd diskpart method. (CMD was showing read-only attribute already as 0. In tutorials it was 1 before clearing the attributes ). Pen drive was still Write protected.

Iv'e also tried regedit method. StorageDevicePolicies was not there initially. so I created it as mentioned here. No luck there.

Next I tried to follow the answer given by Philipbooth in this thread. After step 7, CMD bluntly says "disk is write protected". Coundn't go any further..

So what do you guys think..? Is there any way to use 30 GB of pendrive for my personal use or I just have to throw it away..?

 

[theunliked]

Go to diskpart and run a clean.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

 

[computertech82]

some usb drives can be set to write protection. You would need to know the brand/model to look up how to lock and unlock write protection.

 

[theunliked]

some usb drives can be set to write protection. You would need to know the brand/model to look up how to lock and unlock write protection.

Mate, you dont have to downvote a post.

 

[Saga Lout]

Indeed he shouldn't have done that. Voting rights have been taken away for less.

Here's a link to an old but still relevant post Realbeast made a few years back which should work, assuming there isn't a physical switch on the drive:-
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284593-32-remove-disable-write-protect-drive

 

[adison024]

Go to diskpart and run a clean.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

It gave me this error :

DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.
See the System Event Log for more information.

 

[adison024]

some usb drives can be set to write protection. You would need to know the brand/model to look up how to lock and unlock write protection.

This pendrive is given to me by an educational organisation. I don't know what model is..🙁

 

[adison024]

Indeed he shouldn't have done that. Voting rights have been taken away for less.

Here's a link to an old but still relevant post Realbeast made a few years back which should work, assuming there isn't a physical switch on the drive:-
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/284593-32-remove-disable-write-protect-drive

I had tried that a while ago. It didn't work for me..

 

[Saga Lout]

In that case, i can only think of trying it outside Windows. Linux is nowhere near as precious as Windows when it comes to file permissions. You could download a bootable ISO of, say, Mint or PCLinuxOS and burn it to a CD to boot the machine and run it live without impacting on your Windows system or your hard disk n any way.

 

[adison024]

In that case, i can only think of trying it outside Windows. Linux is nowhere near as precious as Windows when it comes to file permissions. You could download a bootable ISO of, say, Mint or PCLinuxOS and burn it to a CD to boot the machine and run it live without impacting on your Windows system or your hard disk n any way.

Okay. I think that's worth the try for 30 GB 😀 Give me a week or so to try out this solution. I'll try to ask if any of my classmates have Linux, which I don't think I'll find.

Just let me see what I can do about it..

 

[adison024]

In that case, i can only think of trying it outside Windows. Linux is nowhere near as precious as Windows when it comes to file permissions. You could download a bootable ISO of, say, Mint or PCLinuxOS and burn it to a CD to boot the machine and run it live without impacting on your Windows system or your hard disk n any way.

Man, I do live in a Windows dominant world. No one around me has Linux. As it is free, I'll download it try it on my own PC. So give me another week or so..

PS: If this thing doesn't work in Linux too, I'm taking the Pen Drive to an Impact Test Machine...gonna check how much impact load can it bear...😛

 

[Saga Lout]

I believe they burn well. 😀

 

[adison024]

In that case, i can only think of trying it outside Windows. Linux is nowhere near as precious as Windows when it comes to file permissions. You could download a bootable ISO of, say, Mint or PCLinuxOS and burn it to a CD to boot the machine and run it live without impacting on your Windows system or your hard disk n any way.

Greetings.

So finally got my hands on Ubuntu. But still have an issue. have a look.

I went to 'disks'. Selected my pendrive. and in the gear, but the Format option is greyed out....

So, what now...? Was downloading Ubuntu a bad idea..? Should've gone with anything else..?

 

[Saga Lout]

No sign of a file structure at all?

Ubuntu is one of the best so if that can't recognise the disk as valid, I can think of no other way forward. There is some consolation in that it seems at least the data are safe from anyone else getting into it either. I would still crush or burn it though.

 

[adison024]

No sign of a file structure at all?

Ubuntu is one of the best so if that can't recognise the disk as valid, I can think of no other way forward. There is some consolation in that it seems at least the data are safe from anyone else getting into it either. I would still crush or burn it though.

Sign of File Structure...?

Don't know what that means. But I was able to see the files in it, select them, open them, but not delete them. No option for deletion. I had searched up on net how to format a USB flash on Ubuntu. Using that method, the option of 'Format' was greyed out...