Hi all. I have a 256 MB Kingston Data Traveller. I had partitioned it into FAT32 and Linux partitions and it was working fine for quite a while. Then I lent it to someone and when I got it back it would not mount. I have tried to format using fdsik with no success, it says it cannot write to disk. It doesn't mount automatically when I plug it in and apparently the write protection is on. Formatting in XP also fails. When I use the utility in Mandriva Control Center it identifies the drive as read only and says it is empty.
This is what I get from dmesg regarding the device:

SCSI subsystem initialized
Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
USB Mass Storage support registered.
Vendor: Model: USB DISK 20X Rev: 1.03
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 00
usb-storage: device scan complete
SCSI device sda: 501760 512-byte hdwr sectors (257 MB)
sda: Write Protect is on
sda: Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 501760 512-byte hdwr sectors (257 MB)
sda: Write Protect is on
sda: Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
/dev/scsi/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: unable to read partition table
Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
floppy0: no floppy controllers found
Attached scsi generic sg0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0, type 0
FAT: bogus logical sector size 65535
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sda.
FAT: bogus logical sector size 65535
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sda.
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
floppy0: no floppy controllers found

Hi,

This is probably stating the obvious, but you never know and you don't mention it: Does your USB stick have a write protect switch? 2 of my sticks have a very tiny switch (hardly noticeable) that can be used to write protect the stick.

Hope this helps.

Nope there is no mechanical write protection switch on this drive, but thanks for the suggestion.
When I try to use mkdosfs this is what I get:

/sbin/mkdosfs -F32 -v /dev/sda
mkdosfs 2.10 (22 Sep 2003)
mkdosfs: unable to open /dev/sda

You can't make a filesystem on a whole disk like that, you have to partition it first, with fdisk
Then try: /sbin/mkdosfs -F32 -v /dev/sda1

I have tried using fdisk, that is how I partitioned it originally and it worked fine. I think the main problem is that the drive is not writable so none of the changes I try to make work and I can't figure out how to fix that issue.
Here is the fdisk output when I try to create a new partition:

fdisk /dev/sda
You will not be able to write the partition table.
Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel
Building a new DOS disklabel. Changes will remain in memory only,
until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous
content won't be recoverable.

Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sda: 256 MB, 256901120 bytes
8 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 496 * 512 = 253952 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System

Command (m for help): n
Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
p
Partition number (1-4): 1
First cylinder (1-1011, default 1):
Using default value 1
Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (1-1011, default 1011):
Using default value 1011

Command (m for help): type
Selected partition 1
Hex code (type L to list codes): b
Changed system type of partition 1 to b (W95 FAT32)

Command (m for help): w

Unable to write /dev/sda

Flash memory has a fixed number of write/erase cycles. IMO the drive just failed or was written over too many times.