write protected flash drive

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boxfox

Honorable
Mar 18, 2013
5
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10,510
I've read a lot of forums about this topic, and none of them have an answer.

I have a 32GB 3.0 flash drive from Micro Center (local store). It has been write protected, though not on purpose. It was just suddently protected one day.
•There is no manual WP switch on the drive
•Formated FAT32
•Safetly removed, restarted, plugged back in -- no fix.
•added storagedevicepolicies in the registry with a value of "0" and also deleted it -- no fix.
•there are no other "storage device" entries in registry -- no fix.
•there is no write protection in BIOS -- no fix.
•used several pieces of software (HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, and another one similar for a different flash drive company) There is no software for this specific flash drive -- no fix.
•Microcenter does not support it's products in the manner of fixing stuff like this...they'd just replace it, which would be great except there is extremely sensitive work data on the drive -- no fix.
•Obviously you cannot reformat it, as it is write protected -- no fix.
•I've used ATTRIB and FORMAT in command line (in safe mode, as well) -- no fix.
•I've used appropriate utilities (steps above, disk utility, etc.) on 3 Windows 7 machines, 1 XP machine, and an Apple -- no fix.
•It DOES show up in Disk Management: Healthy (Primary Partition).
•Whenever it is plugged in, the "Do you want to scan and fix Removable Disk (G:)?" window pops up. I can actually run the scan, as long as I uncheck both boxes (it can't fix things because it's write protected) -- no fix.
•I've done so called "100% Works" things found on youtube and elsewhere that involve using things like low level formatting tools -- no fix.

I really need to get write protection off of this drive.
Thanks for your time.
 
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boxfox

Honorable
Mar 18, 2013
5
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10,510
Cannot reformat, as drive is write protected.
That said, I would happily destroy the data on this device in trade for returning it to working condition.
I have tried chmod 777 in linux, but no fix.
 
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TidusJames

TidusJames

Honorable
Sep 4, 2012
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10,710
I would try to run it before windows starts... IE: act like you are installing windows from scratch and wipe it long before windows is even running... have you tried doing it in device manager?
 
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boxfox

Honorable
Mar 18, 2013
5
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10,510
If you're referring to the drivers, then yes, I've deleted them and had them reinstalled.
As for the first part of your answer, I'm assuming you're referring to some type of windows preboot environment. I've used several.
 
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boxfox

Honorable
Mar 18, 2013
5
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10,510


Thanks for the post, but there is no "Disk Manager" program for this device.
 
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AutomaticCoding

Honorable
Dec 5, 2012
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10,640
Just my two cents, may or may not apply to you:-
I once bought a flash drive off Ebay, worked for ~ 2 hours then randomly had "Write protection", nothing worked, directly writing to it (without MBR/partitions/etc, just raw), partitioning, changing & deleting files, etc...

No idea what happened to this day, didn't work on any OS and I (in the end, after ~ 5 hours of trying) had to throw it away. The drive itself had no drivers/firmware, wasn't well known and I spent $5 on it. Life goes on. Oh, and the ebay seller pretty much told me to fuck off when I asked him what to do ("WE NO DO WORRNTY!1!1", there's my shitty Chinese accent via text).
 
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Maya Odinezenko

Honorable
May 6, 2013
1
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10,510


I recently bought a few 4GB and 1 8GB from MicroCenter. Holy crap, what a joke.
I actually need them for different Linux distros, and I regret buying them.
I went through the same thing you did. You can try loading up GParted (you can download and burn a LiveCD) and unlock it from there.

I really want to return these pieces of s**t, but I no longer have my receipt. :/
 
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JohnTran817

Reputable
Mar 11, 2014
2
0
4,510
Hey boxfox, did you ever get it to work? I have the same exact problem with the same exact 32 GB flash drive from MicroCenter. I've tried everything you have and nothing has worked.

 
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