USB write protection

[GreekGeeks]

Hello all,

I lost three USB thumb drives in the same period of 2 or three days which became Write protected ? !

First was a 4 GB Busbi USB thumb drive (TD). Working under Windows XP SP3. At first TD was being written to, by MOVING files from a directory in Windows on the PC. Halfway thru, the operation stopped saying that it could not access some files because it had exceeded the maximum length of (?) characters... safely removed the TD. Then I tried to delete some of these files on the TD. It had nested directories about 6-7 levels deep and the file names generated from a Firefox Profile sub directory. I could not remove all the files & sub directories so I tried to format the TD.

Then I got the error the TD can't be formatted because it is 'Write Protected'.

There is no physical switch to 'write protect' and I tried some utilities and scans etc. Now the USB does not show as a drive but the low level HP Formatting tool recognizes it but can't format it because it has become 'write protected'.

This may have been a defective chip or hardware issue. BUT this has happened to three drives now. The Busbi 4GB, a GB generic USB drive, and an old 512 CBM TD, all in the space of 2 days!

By the way I checked for viruses / MBR faults on the TDs but nothing was found. I have since scanned my PC and laptop and FOUND trojans & other malware that just appeared last week!!!! I had no issues previously... My firewall was down due to service operation from the ISP provider.....

I am trying to connect the possibility of an MBR / Rootkit having somehow trashed the USB MBR and rendered it 'write protected' or is this a hardware issue may be related to the system I am using (perhaps power spikes from PSU etc)?

Is there any remote hope of low level formatting to by-pass this write protection and thus 'revive' my 3 TDs? If yes can you please describe the stages and utilities / tools I need?

Many thanks in advance for your support & advice.

GG

 

[lonewolf7]

In the Write Protected error, we can’t write or copy any data in our flash drives and even can’t format the drive.

There are many reasons that cause this problem, let’s see solutions of them.

Solutions:

• First of all try to locate a small switch (if any, that you may have not noticed) at some place on the drive or memory card reader. This is the prime reason for this error. If there is one, switch it to the other side to turn the protection off.

• Yes I know this problem is also occurring these days without this switch but not to worry. Just download this helpful software from here and run it to execute a “low-level format” on the drive. This software is quite handy and may take few attempts to actually remove the error.

• The problem can also be caused by some virus activity so just get it scanned by some updated good anti virus which may solve your problem.

• BUT if none of the methods listed above solves your problem then your pen drive might have gone corrupted, so just get it replaced.

Try these first :
Update 1:

After the low level format, you may need to “Partition the drive“. Dont worry, partitioning a pen drive means allocating it its File System and Cluster Size that was lost after the Low Level Format.

For that:
Run diskmgmt.msc in Run.
In the disk management window, select the pen drive, right click on it and click on Format.
Now choose the File System and Allocation Unit Size and do not check the boxes below.

or

Download this program : http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool.shtml
(AND PLEASE verify you are formatting your USB flash and not anyother drive with important data)

AND.. Verify this problem is your USB by
So to verify if its gone bad or if you cant really write to it. Put it in another computer and see if your problem still happens.

If it still does, its either
1) Theres a switch on it to manually set it to write protect or off
2) The Device has become corrupt.

The computer may say, Write Protect error, cant write to usb flash drive. So at this point, its still detecting the device itself, but whats really happening is "Broken/dead/corrupt". The Computer can only communicate to you, it cant write to it. At this point you can grab your data off the flash drive and I would suggest you do so.

Heres a program you will find useful

http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downloa…

And if its a switch you are looking for , its a tiny on inside the plastic near the side to where you insert it to the usb.

Getting more detailed,

, people have seen the following errors when their thumbs drives, memory card etc becomes write protected.
Cannot copy files and folders, drive is write protected
Cannot format the drive, drive is write protected
The disk is write protected
Remove write protection or use another disk
Media is write protected

Some times people say that suddenly their drive become write protected and they are not able to delete any files and folder on the drive and also not able to copy new files and folder to USB portable drive.

Let’s see how can you remove write protection on your portable devices like pen drives, memory cards, iPod and other USB mass storage devices.

Fix:

Write Protection on any portable USB Device can be applied by the physical lock provided on the card adjuster or some times provided on the pen drives, so make sure to make your drive not write protected by moving the lock in right direction.

But even after moving the physical lock for write protection the problem can happen due to some virus action. This happens when some virus or script which applies the registry hack to make any drive write protect when connected to the computer, In that case follow the procedure below to remove write protection from your pen drive.

READ THIS :
http://www.troublefixers.com/remove-writ…

Or

You can check your pendrive with CHKDSK with /f /r

 

[Jared He]

this is NOT an answer. i was just asking if you can remove write protection from USB drive without formatting. my drive has valuable data and i do not have any space in my computer to backup files, and Google drive does not work. help?