USB device stucked on write protection error

[zidane]

I am having a big issue with my 4GB pen drive. It is not working properly. There is lots of virus in it. I am trying to format it but it fails. When I connect the pen drive it is detected but at the same time my antivirus pops out a huge number of warnings on the screen. I tried to format it, but there is a constant write protection error and it is not going. How can I format it and wipe out the internal data completely.

[fflygirl]

Try to format it in cmd. Launch cmd and tyep format /q/x F:. Here F is the drive letter. You have to take care that you do not double click on any of those exe files in the pen drive. That can cause virus spread in your pc.

[chuck28]

That might not work. Write protection error is very nasty and you cannot remove it so easily. Virus do that. There are some third party software from which you can try to format the pen drive. But before we will go by Disk Management. Right click on My Computer and click on Manage. In that click on Disk Management. At the lower side you can see the attached drive. Right click on that and format it. If it is grayed out then you can try EaseUS Partition Magic. This software is very easy to use. This software is one of the best choice available to format and fix various partition problem. All you have to do is simply install this software first. After installation you will get the list of all partitions in it. You have to click on one and choose delete or format. This might surely work. I think this is the best way to format the pen drive. But if this also does not work then the last option left is to format it via Linux Live Disc. That is through a bootable disc or live cd. It will only work, because the virus which is active in windows will not work in Linux platform. I had formatted a number of different pen drives in the same manner.

[zidane]

Thanks for that solution. I tried all your methods. Only the linux one worked. I was having a Ubuntu disc. I formatted the pen drive in it and there was no issue. It is working fine.