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I had given a pen drive of mine to a friend with some data on it. He plugged the pen drive into the Windows 7 powered Acer netbook, didn't eject (unmount) it before pulling it out.

When I again plugged in my pen drive on his netbook or on my desktop, it shows that its write protected. Even in Ubuntu, it mounts as write protected.

I have read these posts and none worked:

  1. http://www.troublefixers.com/remove-write-protection-on-usb-pen-drive-or-memory-card-or-ipod/
  2. How to make USB drive or pen drive write protected?
  3. usb write protected!
  4. Remove the write protection from a USB flash disk

The Problems I'm facing:

  1. I have no write protection switch on the Pen Drive.
  2. I have no registry in the Registry Editor called "StorageDevicePolicies", I'm using Windows 7.
  3. I can't format it using EASEUS Partition Manager on Windows 7 or with gPartEd on Ubuntu.

Note: I have Windows 7, Ubuntu 11.10 and Mac OS X Lion available to me.

Is there any way to format the pen drive so I can use it again?

Or is the only way now, to throw it?

Community
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Arjun Bajaj
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  • manufacturer and model no pls? Search in the manufacturer site for recovery utility. – Jameelopix Jun 15 '12 at 10:03
  • 1. either virus has messed it up(in which case repartition it) or 2. Its gone...thanks to abrupt removal – tumchaaditya Jun 15 '12 at 12:35
  • I have a similar problem .http://superuser.com/questions/585577/not-able-to-use-pen-drive-after-cleaning-it-using-command-prompt/585602#comment718338_585602 or http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/disk-pen-drive-cleaned-using-command-prompt-not/1402d6b4-4423-4642-ab6b-cded7d770128?tm=1366641476303 – chndn Apr 22 '13 at 14:53

1 Answers1

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Considering that the flash drive detects as "write protected" across multiple platforms, it's safe to assume that the abrupt removal of the flash drive has damaged it and it cannot be used again.

Your only recourse is to recover the data & grab a new drive.

Sathyajith Bhat
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  • Or contact manufacturer if replacement warranty is available – Tachyons Jun 15 '12 at 09:55
  • @AboobackerMk yeah, valid point – Sathyajith Bhat Jun 15 '12 at 09:55
  • I have a similar problem .http://superuser.com/questions/585577/not-able-to-use-pen-drive-after-cleaning-it-using-command-prompt/585602#comment718338_585602 or http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/disk-pen-drive-cleaned-using-command-prompt-not/1402d6b4-4423-4642-ab6b-cded7d770128?tm=1366641476303 – chndn Apr 22 '13 at 14:53