USB drive is write-protected – how do I fix this?

Hey everyone, I’ve run into a bit of a headache. I have two different USB drives showing a Write-protection error, and I can't seem to bypass it no matter what I try.
1. I tried the standard route—right-clicking, going to Properties, then General—but there isn't even a checkbox available to uncheck any kind of Write Protection settings. :?
2. I also went through the Registry Editor, navigated to the system settings, and tried changing the value from 1 to 0 (hexadecimal), which is supposed to clear the Write Protection, but it didn't change a thing... it's still stuck. :/
3. Even attempting to just format the USB drives directly doesn't work; the system won't let me.

At this point, I'm honestly at a loss for what else to do to get these working again. These are small thumb drives, so they don't have those physical lock switches you usually see on SD cards.

Does anyone out there have a solution or a workaround to get them functional again?

Thanks!!!

You aren't telling me which ones they are or how big they are?

Do these sticks behave the same way on other computers?

darkowl72 said:You aren't telling me which ones they are or how big they are?

My bad, I forgot to include those details. Since they're both promotional items, I tried using a utility to check the branding. One is labeled Generic and the other is IBM, and they're both 4GB sticks.

George Sanders37 said:Do these sticks behave the same way on other computers?

They're doing the exact same thing on my MacBook. I'll be back home in about an hour, so I'll test them on my other Windows laptop and let you know. Though, if I recall correctly, they seemed to act up on pretty much everything...

I think you can probably just let those sticks go—it looks like you’ve already tried everything they’d typically suggest. Maybe you could try some specialized formatting tools, but I guess it might not be worth the hassle.

George Sanders37 said:I think you can probably just let those sticks go—it looks like you’ve already tried everything they’d typically suggest. Maybe you could try some specialized formatting tools, but I guess it might not be worth the hassle.

But what on earth triggered this sudden shift in logic?

Are you thinking they're branded with some company logo because they're giving them away as promotional swag, or was there actual marketing material attached to them from whoever handed them out—basically just advertising themselves?

Eric Hayes72 said:But what on earth triggered this sudden shift in logic?

So it's just a "you" problem now? Not them? Look, it’s bad quality—whether it's the chips, the soldering, or the control boards. Usually, overheating is the real killer here, and there isn't much you can do about it if the component quality and design are junk. Luckily, they're pretty cheap to replace these days...

I’d probably try running the format command through CMD first. If that crashes and bricks the drive, I'm heading straight to the nearest Best Buy to vent my frustrations.

Joshua Garcia3 said:Are you thinking they're branded with some company logo because they're giving them away as promotional swag, or was there actual marketing material attached to them from whoever handed them out—basically just advertising themselves?

They just have the logo of the company that gave them away.

Noah Miller6 said:I’d probably try running the format command through CMD first. If that crashes and bricks the drive, I'm heading straight to the nearest Best Buy to vent my frustrations.

I tried doing it that way too—typing in diskpart and running attributes disk and all that—but nothing works...
So I guess both are totally bricked then...:/

It’s all just a software issue...
I really hope you still have the receipt and that it's covered under warranty??!!

If you happen to know anyone else who has some "Write-protection" drives in 32 or 64 GB sizes... I’d be more than happy to buy them from you or anyone else out there.

Peter Brooks5 said:It’s all just a software issue...
I really hope you still have the receipt and that it's covered under warranty??!!

If you happen to know anyone else who has some "Write-protection" drives in 32 or 64 GB sizes... I’d be more than happy to buy them from you or anyone else out there.

Nope, nothing like that. One was a promotional item from Intel, and the other came from some Norwegian firm; I got both as freebies at events.
I've still got about five more from Intel lying around, and they all work perfectly fine...
A buddy of mine runs Linux on his rig, so I'll pass them over to him. Maybe he can find a way to kill the protection through Linux and actually make them usable again...

That’s actually what I was going to suggest—just try tackling them from within Linux. You could even boot up a Live version from a disc, so you aren't stuck installing anything permanently, maybe something like Linux Mint .
Just grab the ISO, burn it to a CD or DVD, boot from it, and you can work in it just like you would in Windows.

Joshua Garcia3 said:That’s actually what I was going to suggest—just try tackling them from within Linux. You could even boot up a Live version from a disc, so you aren't stuck installing anything permanently, maybe something like Linux Mint .
Just grab the ISO, burn it to a CD or DVD, boot from it, and you can work in it just like you would in Windows.

I'm not exactly an expert on this stuff, so I think I'll just hand it off to a buddy of mine to see if he can figure it out. It's not like it's a huge emergency since I've got plenty of other thumb drives lying around... thanks.