USB drive read-only

Right Click on Drive, click Properties , Click Security, is everything checked for 'ALLOW'? btw, SANDISK are craptastic drives! 2 of my Sandisk flashdrive aren't even readable anymore.

notenoughsleep wrote: ↑ One of my USB flash drives that I use for my work backup suddenly became read-only for unknown reasons. I've tried reformatting but it won't allow me, as it's set to read-only

There is no physical switch to disable it. I've used diskpart to clear attributes but that didn't work. I've tried registry editor but that didn't work. I tried to re-format using third party software but it gave me an error message of bad sector, but when I run diskgenius it shows no bad sectors.

Is there any other fix, or am I just better off buying a replacement flash drive? I just replaced this a few months ago already (Sandisk)

Cheapo-Findo wrote: ↑ Right Click on Drive, click Properties , Click Security, is everything checked for 'ALLOW'? btw, SANDISK are craptastic drives! 2 of my Sandisk flashdrive aren't even readable anymore.

Yes, I checked and everything is checked "allow" but still won't work. Not worth my effort, just going to order a replacement drive that is not Sandisk haha.

But my new problem is, how do I erase the data on the flash drive since it's read only? It has sensitive business documents on there.

Take a hammer and smash it in pieces.

notenoughsleep wrote: ↑ Yes, I checked and everything is checked "allow" but still won't work. Not worth my effort, just going to order a replacement drive that is not Sandisk haha.

But my new problem is, how do I erase the data on the flash drive since it's read only? It has sensitive business documents on there.

notenoughsleep wrote: ↑ Yes, I checked and everything is checked "allow" but still won't work. Not worth my effort, just going to order a replacement drive that is not Sandisk haha.

But my new problem is, how do I erase the data on the flash drive since it's read only? It has sensitive business documents on there.

a hammer. Thats the problem. The safety measure allows you to recoup but if your data is sensitive....shippping it back is up to you.

As above. It's a safety feature. That means it failed but it's letting you save the data.

If you used it heavily (like daily backups of large volumes of data), then most likely the drive wore out and went read-only. Not surprising with today's cheap flash, it's amazing how some ancient USB 2.0 drives have much higher write speed and/or endurance than modern drives. In my experience Sandisk has been shit for the last decade or so, at least the non-Extreme and endurance lines - from cards that die in dash cams to slow AF write speeds, usually both. Be grateful at least it's read only, I've had new Sandisk cards just die out of nowhere and stop being recognized altogether.

Talk to Sandisk about warranty replacement. I had to try a few times, but they eventually offered me a replacement without having to return it when I balked at the cost of shipping vs. buying another brand's card. They had me break my SD card in half and take a pic of it with the serial clearly visible. Otherwise there is no real data privacy guarantee once you send it off, they can say whatever they want and write whatever in their policy, but you have no way of knowing if they actually follow through with anything they say. Ultimately plenty of returned stuff ends up as e-waste or goes to "refurbishment", employee's time costs money and large companies are cheap so it's not too far fetched that your drive could end up in the wrong hands at some point down the line.