USB Jumpdrive became write-protected

[Doug G]

I've got one of those USB flash drive devices that has been working OK so
far. Now, for some reason, XP reports the device as being "write-protected",
even though there is no write-protect switch of any sort on the device. All
the files are still there and they can be read just fine, but any attempt to
delete a file, copy a file to it, or even to format it results in an error
that the device is write protected! I've tried this on several systems, so
it's actually not an XP issue.

Any idea how the device got into this state? Is there some way to reset this
condition, or should I just give up and start checking the warranty policy?

-- DG

 

[Jone Doe]

Go to my computer and find the drive. Right click and see if there is a
place for setting it. If not, try properties.

On some of my devices a right click allows a format, or a change of setting
to make it secure (write protect)

 

[Doug G]

Tnanks, but I have tried all that, including the Disk Management app in
Administrative Tools, Device Manager, etc., etc. I can't see anything that
makes the write protection settable or unsettable :-(.

 

[Don Schmidt]

Can you copy all the data off of it and then format it?

 

[Doug G]

Can you copy all the data off of it and then format it?

Nope. Formatting involves writing to it and the system sees it as hardware
write-protected. Seems like it must be some internal failure on the device
that it is reporting this condition to the driver.

 

[dk]

Had same problem with my flash drive, fixed it by using the supplied utility
software to lowlevel format the drive and it has been working since.

Using windows format as you say would not work although I was able to read
from the drive.