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USB flash drive problem


Amara
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I am running windows XP home on a Dell Inspiron B120 laptop and I am having troubles with my Sandisk USB flash drive. I was able to use my flash drive without problems for a few months, but last week I ran into a problem. I went to open my flash drive from my computer and it said that it was not working properly and asked if I wanted to reformat it. I said yes, but it wouldn't do it because it said the drive was write protected. I know that most flash drives have a write protection switch, but I do not see any way that I could have flipped it accidentally because I think it is inside the casing. I checked the status of the drive in device manager and it says it is working properly, but it is clearly not. I then tried to go into disk manager from administrative tools to try and repartition it thus overwriting the write protection, but that option was greyed out when I right clicked it. I've also looked into some free software for reformatting and re-partioning, but so far nothing has been able to get past the write protection issue.

My question is, does anyone know where specifically the write protection tab might be? (unfortunately I don't know the model of my drive, only that it is Sandisk) Also, is there a way to get around the write protection issue to reformat and make it usable again either with software(preferably free) or some other way? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

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This is very much like a hot plugging problem which I wrote about here: http://forums.windowsforum.org/index.php?showtopic=32464

Thanks for the link. I don't think that is my problem, but it is always possible. I always use the safely remove hardware button when removing it except for every once in a while when I need to get it out when my computer is hibernating and I don't feel like starting it up just to remove it. I always assumed that if it was in hibernate unpluging it then wouldn't be a problem because it has already for the most part powered down and finished all processes. Is this right?

Any other suggestions to solve the problem?

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  • 4 weeks later...

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