USB drive is suddenly write protected...

[Stefken89]

Hello everyone,

 

so I have this USB drive (128GB ADATA UE700 USB3.0) that is about a month and a half old.

I have been using it with no problems for this time, but today it decided to become write-protected when I was copying some files to it.

I started the copy, somewhere halfway it stopped copying and froze, so I decided after a while to cancel the process, and try again. Only, I couldn't. The drive had become write-protected. I can open files on it or copy them from it, but that's about it.

 

I tried these supposed fixes:

 

- formatting

- Registry edit (StorageDevicePolicies / USBstor)

- cmd -commands (format, convert, clean, clean all)

- safe-mode windows > format

- diskmanagement (can't do anything there)

 

Nothing works.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thank you for your help in advance,

Greetings,

Stef

[pwn_intended]

If youve tried all that, theres a possibility that the drive itself is dead. These things die all the time. Can't say that I have had an ADATA die on me, but over the last 8 or so years I have built up a little collection of at least 8+ dead thumb drives

[Mug]

Does it work in Linux?

 

Have you tried exFAT?

[amp88]

Some flash drives will enter into write-protected mode when the NAND is faulty or has used up its program/erase cycles. Unless you've been hammering the drive in the month and a half you've had it, it sounds like there's a problem with the NAND. Just RMA it for a replacement.

[Stefken89]

If youve tried all that, theres a possibility that the drive itself is dead. These things die all the time. Can't say that I have had an ADATA die on me, but over the last 8 or so years I have built up a little collection of at least 8+ dead thumb drives

 

It's not really completely dead though. I can read from it.  

 

Does it work in Linux?

 

Have you tried exFAT?

Sorry, no Linux install available (yet).

Can't format it to anything since it's write-protected. So yes, I tried, didn't work.

 

Some flash drives will enter into write-protected mode when the NAND is faulty or has used up its program/erase cycles. Unless you've been hammering the drive in the month and a half you've had it, it sounds like there's a problem with the NAND. Just RMA it for a replacement.

 

I really hope it's not faulty, 'cause I don't like RMA's. I know I didn't use the cycles, I haven't been writing that much to it.

[pwn_intended]

-snip-

I totally forgot to mention this: there is a magical tool called the HP Disk Storage Format Tool that has saved a few of my usb keys that have been borked (not all, but definitely some that were not formattable otherwise)

It may be worth a shot for you. Dont worry that your USB key isnt HP, it works for all brands. This is also the ONLY TIME you will hear me promote something HP. EVER.

Here is a link to it, and if you dont trust me, feel free to look up people's recommendations of it on many many forums.

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6582-hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool.html

[Stefken89]

I totally forgot to mention this: there is a magical tool called the HP Disk Storage Format Tool that has saved a few of my usb keys that have been borked (not all, but definitely some that were not formattable otherwise)

It may be worth a shot for you. Dont worry that your USB key isnt HP, it works for all brands. This is also the ONLY TIME you will hear me promote something HP. EVER.

Here is a link to it, and if you dont trust me, feel free to look up people's recommendations of it on many many forums.

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/6582-hp-usb-disk-storage-format-tool.html

 

Sadly enough, it didn't work. I still get an error that says it's write protected.

I think I will need to inform about that RMA ... :-(

Problem is that I have sensitive information on that drive, I don't want anyone to have that, so that might be a problem, since I can't erase it.

[Stefken89]

So update for future reference:

 

ADATA has an online repair tool on their website for their USB drives, and it worked! 

 

http://www.adata.com/en/ss/usbdiy/