How to remove Security on USB pen drive

Guignol · 10-18-2007, 09:12 AM

Hey all!

Just my luck,decided to try Vista.I removed the USB key to fast and now its stuck! The key is Read only! How can I remove all the security stuff?

They is 2 partions actually,One for the security thing and the other Vfat.

How can I format from scratch?

Thanks in advance!

Mart

Death914 · 10-18-2007, 10:17 AM

Use this program :

http://www.bay-wolf.com/utility/usbk...memkeyboot.zip

or ,

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/fil.../download.html

Guignol · 10-18-2007, 11:16 AM

The USB key is write protected.I need to format everything.That program will not work(might as well use the MS format utility for the same thing).

In another word,I need to "break in" and erase everything.

Thx anyways Death

DVD-and-Media · 10-18-2007, 11:23 AM

There should be a driver for Vista on the partition of the USB.

Guignol · 10-18-2007, 12:05 PM

Its a BUG in vista! If you don't safely remove device it locks it! I am not
the only one that had that issue .I don't care for Winblows.I wanna format all the partitions from linux and thats it.I already started my CEntOS image deploy anyways,bye bye MS crap!

b0uncer · 10-18-2007, 12:16 PM

Doesn't it help if you just use dd to write zeros over the disk, and then create a new filesystem there? Do you encounter errors?

EDIT: because I don't get how the usb key could be "locked" so that one can't write there at all, except for a manual switch that prevents writing. A filesystem can be encrypted, but it's pretty difficult to make it unwritable without destroying the device for good. I've seen that happening too, an "unsafe removal" of a usb key from a Windows machine may easily wreck the device so it's unusable (last time I did that, my 512MB key got rendered to seemingly 8MB of crap that couldn't be dealt with by any means - nice?).

Guignol · 10-18-2007, 01:57 PM

Thats right! Good idea! I haven't done this command in a while tough.

Is this ok? --------> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdj bs=1M

If so, then nada

My key is mapped sdj1

Mart

b0uncer · 10-18-2007, 02:05 PM

Yeah it's ok; the usual bs is 512, but if you think 1M is ok for you, go for it. You could also just try using fdisk or something to remove the partitions & create new ones; could be easier.

Guignol · 10-18-2007, 02:18 PM

fdisk is what I use usually but this time it was not good cause of the write protection thing...

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdj bs=1M

That does not work either

Jezz....I am out of ideas