Write protected USB, urgent help needed

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

Was working fine before. Got 2 trojans viruses, suspect that is cause, Bitdefender can't remove them because it's write lrotected. Urgent help needed. Tried mini XP still won't work, ffs. Help.

[techguru]

first do a full scan with the kaspersky av tool

and malwarebytes and probably superantispyware

 

you can use the hp usb format tool to format the usb if thats what you wanna do...

 

http://www.kaspersky.com/antivirus-removal-tool?form=1

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool.shtml

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

first do a full scan with the kaspersky av tool

and malwarebytes and probably superantispyware

 

you can use the hp usb format tool to format the usb if thats what you wanna do...

 

http://www.kaspersky.com/antivirus-removal-tool?form=1

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HP-USB-Disk-Storage-Format-Tool.shtml

 

HP format tool says it write protected. I will try another AV tonight, at school now.

[SirPaul]

HP format tool says it write protected. I will try another AV tonight, at school now.

 

try GParted through live linux and format it like that.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

try GParted through live linux and format it like that.

 

Link to liver Linux? And what does it do, will I be able to run a Linux distro from a USB without installing it?

[SirPaul]

Link to liver Linux? And what does it do, will I be able to run a Linux distro from a USB without installing it?

Yup

Just search in Google "Ubuntu download", it will bring the Ubuntu homepage.

Then download tool called UNetBootin it's easy to use, you will choose the .iso of the Ubuntu from your disk and browse on what USB you want to "install it to" . (UNetBootin has builtin Linux downloader as well, so you can just choose which Linux you want and destination USB and it will download and do a boot USB from it).

And last, boot from USB and choose something like "try Ubuntu without instalation" or "something something live" . Depends on distro.

And there should be gparted built in it. If it's not, just open terminal (search in programs for terminal - which is console) and run this command "sudo apt-get install gparted"

.. 3 seconds after this command you should type "y" as it ask you if you really want to install it.

After that type to terminal "gparted" and hit enter Or find the gparted icon and double click.

(if you run gparted (or any program) from terminal window, you must not close that terminal session . It will close the whole application. ) sorry for typo's, I am typing this on freaking tablet.

[techguru]

try booting a linux live cd and reformat it from linux...

[ericssin]

There's a chance your USB drive is faulty I have seen it many times.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

There's a chance your USB drive is faulty I have seen it many times.

 

It's because of a decompression bomb trojan I think

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

As the others have suggested, Gparted is your best shot at sorting that out. 

 

EaseUS Partition Master might also be able to do it under Windows, but if you suspect that it's virus-related you may want to sort it out under Linux.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

try booting a linux live cd and reformat it from linux...

 

Yup

Just search in Google "Ubuntu download", it will bring the Ubuntu homepage.

Then download tool called UNetBootin it's easy to use, you will choose the .iso of the Ubuntu from your disk and browse on what USB you want to "install it to" . (UNetBootin has builtin Linux downloader as well, so you can just choose which Linux you want and destination USB and it will download and do a boot USB from it).

And last, boot from USB and choose something like "try Ubuntu without instalation" or "something something live" . Depends on distro.

And there should be gparted built in it. If it's not, just open terminal (search in programs for terminal - which is console) and run this command "sudo apt-get install gparted"

.. 3 seconds after this command you should type "y" as it ask you if you really want to install it.

After that type to terminal "gparted" and hit enter Or find the gparted icon and double click.

(if you run gparted (or any program) from terminal window, you must not close that terminal session . It will close the whole application. ) sorry for typo's, I am typing this on freaking tablet.

 

As the others have suggested, Gparted is your best shot at sorting that out. 

 

EaseUS Partition Master might also be able to do it under Windows, but if you suspect that it's virus-related you may want to sort it out under Linux.

 

gParted didn't work, it says drive is write protected,

[tyrz_939]

I don't know if it'll help but you could try using DD, typing something along the lines of "sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/XXX" replacing the XXX with the usb stick, you can use "sudo fdisk -l" to find the usb stick, It'll be something like "/dev/sdb"

 

http://i.imgur.com/Mi8fOf5.png<--- Example

[Master Disaster]

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

If you can't format it normally (and by the way if Windows says it write protected so will Gparted) then give it a Low Level Format. Its fixed a few USB drives for me in the past.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

Ok, command line it is then ...
I don't know your technical skills, so I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. I'll use capital letters for the bits you need to type and regular ones for everything else.


In windows, open an elevated command prompt (type "CMD" in the start menu, right-click cmd.exe and select "run as administrator")


Once the command prompt appears, type DISKPART and hit enter. Wait for Diskpart to start up.

Type LIST DISK and enter. Find the usb stick in the list and make a mental note of the disk number (0, 1, 2, 3 etc).
Be careful here, remembering or entering the wrong number might have catastrophic results.

Type SELECT DISK # (where # is replaced with the disk number that the PC assigned to the stick) and enter.

Once it confirms that the stick is selected, type ATTRIBUTES DISK and enter.
You'll now get a lot of info on the stick. Look for the Current Read-only state. If that says "yes", type ATTRIBUTES DISK CLEAR READONLY and hit enter again.

 

If that doesn't do the trick or if the Read-only state says "no", I'm out of ideas.
 

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

Ok, command line it is then ...

I don't know your technical skills, so I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. I'll use capital letters for the bits you need to type and regular ones for everything else.

In windows, open an elevated command prompt (type "CMD" in the start menu, right-click cmd.exe and select "run as administrator")

Once the command prompt appears, type DISKPART and hit enter. Wait for Diskpart to start up.

Type LIST DISK and enter. Find the usb stick in the list and make a mental note of the disk number (0, 1, 2, 3 etc).

Be careful here, remembering or entering the wrong number might have catastrophic results.

Type SELECT DISK # (where # is replaced with the disk number that the PC assigned to the stick) and enter.

Once it confirms that the stick is selected, type ATTRIBUTES DISK and enter.

You'll now get a lot of info on the stick. Look for the Current Read-only state. If that says "yes", type ATTRIBUTES DISK CLEAR READONLY and hit enter again.

 

If that doesn't do the trick or if the Read-only state says "no", I'm out of ideas.

 

 

Okay, did it and the results; when I do ATTRIBUTES DISK CLEAR READONLY I get an answer in CMD saying Disk attributes cleared succesfully  but my flash drive remains read only.  Heh,

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

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

If you can't format it normally (and by the way if Windows says it write protected so will Gparted) then give it a Low Level Format. Its fixed a few USB drives for me in the past.

 

The software you linked does not work. It shows plenty of "The media is write protected errors"

 

[Master Disaster]

The software you linked does not work. It shows plenty of "The media is write protected errors"

 

 

If a low level format failed i'm afraid its fubar, chuck it in the bin and get yourself another.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

If a low level format failed i'm afraid its fubar, chuck it in the bin and get yourself another.

 

I'l RMA it

[Tsuki]

is it possible the permissions are just set wrong..? see if you can take ownership. may not work, but its worth a shot.

[Master Disaster]

is it possible the permissions are just set wrong..? see if you can take ownership. may not work, but its worth a shot.

No chance, a low level format wouldn't care about ownership, it unmounts the drive before it formats it anyway so technically its not owned by anyone.

I've heard theories that a certain type of failure can cause flash rom to get stuck in its write mode and because it thinks its still writing data it shows as write protected, not sure if that's true or not though. Its a very common issue with flash drives, just google write protected flash drive and check out the amount of hits.

[TheMidnightNarwhal]

No chance, a low level format wouldn't care about ownership, it unmounts the drive before it formats it anyway so technically its not owned by anyone.

I've heard theories that a certain type of failure can cause flash rom to get stuck in its write mode and because it thinks its still writing data it shows as write protected, not sure if that's true or not though. Its a very common issue with flash drives, just google write protected flash drive and check out the amount of hits.

 

Yeah. I think it's because I may have ran a game form my stick.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

I guess an RMA was the right idea.  If a low-level format, gparted and diskpart failed to fix it, I don't see what would.

 

Running a game from the stick shouldn't be a problem.  I used to have GTA:SA on a USB stick and never had a problem with it.