Unable to Format pendrive, Delete contents
 

My dear friends i got the strange problem,


I purchased new Kingston Datatraveler 32GB Pendrive

after i copied some of the files into that around 2GB.

But whenever iam trying to delete those content it is giving the following error.

Readonly file system

actually it is not.

I tried the same in windows and linux.

Is there any way by which i can delete the content or format the pendrive.

by using the command

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb i got the error
invalid blocks count

------

Now I want to forcefully format the pendrive or is there any tool or utility which will help me to format the USB.

You might want to check that you have valid partitions set up and the partition table is OK.
run
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

then press p to print the partition table. If that gives you errors you might consider deleting existing partitions and creating new ones to see if that fixes the problem.

Yes

I tried this. It is saying i/o error and write protected.

i.e fdisk /dev/sdb

after i deleted 4 partitions which are existing there

and created one new partition i.e primary

and trying to write those partition

it is giving i/o error

I dont understand suddenly what happend to my pendrive i.e why it is suddenly become write protected even when i tried to access in windows it is saying write protected. It is working very well like readonly mode. The film it is stored earlier iam able to watch. But the files iam unable to delete or move.

There is no button around that to put as write protected.

I want to forcefully format my pendrive if nothing works.

My Operating System is Mandriva. (for information)

Anyone think this could be one of those weird drives for Windows, with that proprietary r/o junk on it? What was it called.... I can't remember.. U2 or U3 or something like that? That can't be removed?

Try using dd to wipe the partition table

where ? = your usb
/dev/sdf /dev/sdb
etc
not sdb1 or sdf1,etc

note that will destroy the partition table
you then need to take the usb out
wait ten sec
insert usb and open Gparted
find usb under "devices" in gparted menu
then get gparted to make a msdos partition table whatever
and format to fat32 or whatever

Hey you're not the only one with this problem. I've been approached by two people in the last 4 months with very similar problems with the kingston. I got one to work by formatting but the other I couldn't figure out. Looking forward to reading peoples suggestions


George

You should try using dd to zero the drive as stated above, if that does not work and there's no locking switch then ...

I think it's a bad drive, take it back to the store for a refund if none of the above work. I've found this is common for Kingston drives (not the best quality, IMO).

Try GParted. You can install it as a program on your existing Linux distribution or you could just download the live CD. Then format it to the FAT32 file system. If it has a pair of keys next to it (the USB stick), then that means it's mounted. Simply right-click, click 'Unmount' and format. This helped me on a similar problem with a HDD.

If you zero out the partition table, you will probably have to use advanced features (no. of heads, sector per track) in fdisk before you can reformat it. You should post more information on this device. Do two devices show up in /dev/? What kernel messages do you see when you insert it? Is the filesystem corrupt? Is it a U3 device?

Try mounting it rw, and monitor the kernel messages. "sudo tail -f /var/log/messages". The kernel messages may indicate why it is being mounted read-only. One possibility is that the filesystem is corrupt.

If it is a U3 pendrive, I don't know of a Linux solution to remove a U3 iso image. You may have to use the remove tool in windows if there is one on the pendrive.