1
I have a 4gig flash drive, which I can read from but not write on, erase, nor format in any computer (tried in 7 different computers including xp, vista, and win7).
I want to erase all the data inside because it is useless. Once I erase something, it erases it and gives me an error that it can't find the file. Once I refresh the folder, the file comes back. I tried holding Shift + Del. I also tried to use the command to format it in safe mode, but it says "access denied"
. I don't have a write protection button or whatever it is on my flash drive. It's just a simple small 4 gig one.
3Storage media often become read-only when their firmware detects errors while writing. Older flash drives have a relatively short lifetime... – user1686 – 2011-11-19T00:12:26.733
Is there anything i can do about it? i opened up the flash drive. is there anything i can do with the chips there or something that can fix it? btw, I can view the files in the flash drive and use them copy them etc. but i can't erase them or format it. i used the cmd too and few commands that i found online and it didn't work. please help me! – Baruch – 2011-11-19T01:57:22.950
There's nothing you can do to the chips, and certainly not using home tools...(it'd be like fixing a watch using only an axe and sledgehammer.) Although you could try to low-level format the drive - I did that in a situation just like yours and the tool marked 15% of the blocks as bad - but there's no guarantee that the rest won't fail as well. Just buy a new drive while this one is still readable. – user1686 – 2011-11-19T04:22:13.613
On a related note, saying "I tried a few commands I found online" is not useful at all. Remember that help sites cannot read your mind. – user1686 – 2011-11-19T04:26:02.937
1Copy off the data, smash the chip, and toss it. – Daniel R Hicks – 2011-11-19T13:50:31.253