How old is this drive ? It may just be broken...

I buy it 4 months ago, and I'm just trying to to know if it's corrupted or not...

any other suggetion because I dont think that's a good idea to buy a flash disk every 4 months...

hi, ro means read only.(in fstab)

see what happens if you change ro to user or rw.

wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fstab

Another thing you could try....

Make sure the disk is loaded in the system.

change to the root directory and

ls -la

it should output a list of files.

to be sure , to be sure.

WARNING! "removes files recursively throughout the directories."

then once you're sure it is the right drive.... type and execute as root....

rm -rf *.*

That command is very dangerous with root priv. It removes files recursively throughout the directories, if any, then removes the directories too!...

cheers, Glenn

you may have a trojan on there, mbr?

sorry, thanks any way
and there is a virus in it, like i mentioned in the title..

That's OK. I forgot you mentioned the virii.

rm -rf will remove it.

Once you have fstab organised it should be a piece of cake.

I do this all the time on winxp boxes, not so much usb sticks.

Then I would zero the drive as suggested by our learned friend above.

A handy tool is to have a live Linux distro on a CD-ROM or a flash stick.

I have found Mepis and Slax (respectively) really useful for these tasks.

regards Glenn

I want to continue with this thread instead to create another.

I have the same problem, and try all your tips, but all the solutions have the same thing, the USB is detected as Write protected since you plug it, the dmesg show:

sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on

So, commands like dd, fdisk, mount and others always show a warning

The device is write protected.

And nothing can be donde, so i think that the solution could be something like:

1.- Plug the drive
2.- Eject ($eject /dev/sdb)
3.- ¿?

I need your help?

Extra: Or my memory raise the all the read/write cycles.

OPPS almost wrote this.
If you can't format it try to partition it.


It seems to be damaged beyond repair. Does any other flash drive work correctly.

Yes, i have other USB pen drive and works fine, and i plug others (friends and family), and also works.