i have a 3GB USB stick.
A Patriot Exporter.
in windows i took and .iso image and extracted its contents to the USB stick. Everything worked fine (the stick ran just like the CD). Now, however, i would like to use the USB stick for something else.
The problem is... the stick is now write-protected.
windows just choked when i tried to do anything to it.
so i figured i'd be able to take care of it in linux.

i can't.

i've tried mounting it and deleting everything.
i tried fdisk, which tells me that it cannot write to the disk or the partition table.
i even tried shred /dev/sdb. and it tells me "failed to open for writing: Read-only file system"

i don't really know what else to do.
any suggestions?

Hi leprkhn, I've got a stick that actually has a slide lock similar to a floppy that "write protects" it. Could this be the case?
Good luck. ;-)

ah right, i had thought the same thing.
unfortunately, unless the switch has been hidden well enough to elude my close inspection, that's not the case.

thanks though.

Assuming the stick is plugged in and you can see its contents, what does the output of "mount" have to say about it?

Also, what does "ls -l /dev/sdb" have to say?

In addition to answering SciYro's post you might try this.

http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...original_state

Good luck. ;-)

No need to bother, if the results of what i requested come back as a expect (a read only iso filesystem, impossible to modify), then the only answer i think is to create a new filesystem for it, which your link explains nicely.

ok
first off (if it matters) im running kubuntu.

when mounting:
<code>sudo mount /dev/sdb /mnt/hd</code>

it says:

mount: block device /dev/sdb is write-protected, mounting read-only

ls -l returns:

brwxrwxrwx 1 root plugdev 8, 16 2007-09-30 10:07 /dev/sdb

@peacedog:

the link you provided sounded like just the thing, but when i enter fdisk it still tells me that it will not be able to write to the partition table. this is the output from fdisk:

leprkhn@kubuntu:~$ fdisk /dev/sdb
You will not be able to write the partition table.

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 4160 MB, 4160749568 bytes
128 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1024 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 7936 * 512 = 4063232 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 98052 241891 570754815+ 72 Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(357, 116, 40) logical=(98051, 51, 11)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 45) logical=(241890, 104, 51)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 21257 265212 968014120 65 Novell Netware 386
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(288, 115, 43) logical=(21256, 30, 47)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 114, 50) logical=(265211, 52, 42)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 235621 479576 968014096 79 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(366, 32, 33) logical=(235620, 18, 30)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(357, 32, 43) logical=(479575, 39, 39)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4 ? 363620 363627 27749+ d Unknown
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(372, 97, 50) logical=(363619, 12, 25)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(363626, 11, 33)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Command (m for help)


looks a little goofy to me, but im a newb.

Did you follow the instructions in the link above?
Good luck. ;-)

yessir i did follow the instructions in the link.


leprkhn@kubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
1+0 records in
1+0 records out
512 bytes (512 B) copied, 2.2349e-05 seconds, 22.9 MB/s
leprkhn@kubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sdc
You will not be able to write the partition table.

Command (m for help): n
You must delete some partition and add an extended partition first

it goes downhill from there.

fdisk cannot delete partitions.

try using a different partition tool, like cfdisk.

cfdisk (a tool that i am totally unfamiliar with) also tells me that it cannot write to the disk.

ill have to read the man page i guess.

You could wipe the whole stick with dd then try using fdisk.

Replace sdX with whatever your drive actually is.
Good luck. ;-)

leprkhn@kubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc conv=notrunc
Password:
dd: opening `/dev/sdc': Read-only file system
leprkhn@kubuntu:~$ fdisk /dev/sdc
You will not be able to write the partition table.


still not working.
thanks for trying though!

What happens if you remove the drive and reinsert it? You could try to remount it read/write.Good luck. ;-)