Unable to remove write protection from usb drive

Vignesh B

Youngling
A friend's usb drive is infected by a some malware which is preventing the drive to be formatted or for that case to do anything with any of the files except open them. A scan with defender shows the malware but it is unable to clean it. Even unlocker is unable to delete those files. I have even tried to create a registry entry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies named "WriteProtect" & set the value to 0 but in vain.

2013-09-22 15_52_19-Greenshot.jpg
 

baiju

Ambassador of Buzz
Try it on another pc with updated antivirus. Also try a linux bootable disk and format.
 
OP
V

Vignesh B

Youngling
Also try a linux bootable disk and format.
Did, but yet the same error message that the disk is write protected.

try formatting it using rufus.
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way
Same error with this one too.

If you get one solution, do tell.
Sure.




I have tried removing with various different antiviruses, but none of them are able to clean it. Also tried using boot-time scans of avast & avg rescue cd.
 

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
if even linux boot cd can't format/delete the files on usb drive then most likely its hardware is damaged & you can't do anything about it except buying a new one.
 

whitestar_999

Super Moderator
Staff member
in case of pen drives it is possible under certain circumstances.e.g.if a malware was writing continuously to pen drive resulting in no response from safely remove pen drive option & you then take it out suddenly & this happened multiple times then it may result in corrupted hardware.
 

dashing.sujay

Moving
Staff member
I also have a brand new moserbaer 8gb pd lying useless with the same problem. There's a movie folder and the corresponding file, plus some gibberish named files ranging in several GBs (false). I tried everything available on internet, and they failed.

The system apparently had no malware.
 
Top Bottom