I'm being told my USB stick is write protected (no slider switch)

[rh0000]

I have a Toshiba laptop running Vista home basic. I also have a Maxell 2GB
USB stick, which I have not used for a while, but formerly it worked okay. I
wanted to use the stick again, but found when I inserted it that I needed to
format it. When I did this I was told first that it has a capacity of 1.89GB,
then that it is write protected. There is no slider switch on the stick, so
it is not possible to write protect it mechanically. If I right click on the
USB stick's icon and select properties, I am told that it is working
properly, and that it has 0 bytes used space and 0 bytes free space. My
recollection is that when I last used it I left no files on the stick. Does
anyone know what is going on and whether I can make my USB stick usable?

 

[rh0000]

Thanks. The error is still there when I try to format via command prompt. I
don't think the stick is being used as ready boost:there is no icon showing
this or any other indication. I'll try to check the stick on another computer
(preferably one using xp rather than vista), though I don't have easy access
to another PC.

 

[Pavel A.]

Thanks. The error is still there when I try to format via command prompt.
I
don't think the stick is being used as ready boost:there is no icon
showing
this or any other indication. I'll try to check the stick on another
computer
(preferably one using xp rather than vista), though I don't have easy
access
to another PC.

Then you may want to boot off a Linux "live CD".
It should work with windows-formatted USB stick.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-info/index-en.html

Unfortunately, it's not that simple to get hold of a WinPE "live CD"

Regards,
--PA