Write protected thumb drives

[dishdude]

I have a handful of thumb drives that are preloaded with software and protected from being formatted. Is there a way to override this protection and format them?

 

[ZeeOSix]

Can you see the write protecting software files on the thumb drive? If so, maybe delete them and then try re-formating.

 

[AandPDan]

You could also try removing the partition information.

From a Windows CMD prompt type: diskpart

Then: list disk
Find the thumb drive and be VERY careful

Then: select disk # (where # is the drive)

Then: clean

It will wipe ALL the partition information off the drive. You'll have to go into disk management to recreate the partition and format it.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by AandPDan
You could also try removing the partition information.

From a Windows CMD prompt type: diskpart

Then: list disk
Find the thumb drive and be VERY careful

Then: select disk # (where # is the drive)

Then: clean

It will wipe ALL the partition information off the drive. You'll have to go into disk management to recreate the partition and format it.


I receive 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.

There are two partitions on the drive, it allowed me to clean the one that wasn't write protected.

 

[ZeeOSix]

Try these steps:

https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to/storage/remove-write-protection-usb-3633096/

 

[StevieC]

I use this, if this can't un-write protect them then it's something hardware driven and not a soft-setting on the device that software can remove.

http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/

Download Link: http://hddguru.com/software/HDD-LLF-Low-Level-Format-Tool/HDDLLFsetup.4.40.exe