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I have a USB disk which does not allow me to format/mount/unmount or created partitions on it.
Using dmesg | tail gives me the following result:
I found this post on AskUbuntu and tried using the accepted answer. I get the following result, but it is still read-only:
umount doesn't work. Says umount: /dev/sdc: not mounted
Any help on how to remove the write protection will be much appreciated.
Try:
sudo hdparm -r0 /dev/sdb
as suggested gena2x.
AFAIK, this type of "protection" is automatically enabled on physical failure occurrences. This is basically a way for you to recover your data before something critical happens (fried disk).
So at one point in time, the firmware of the USB disk detected a failure.
Now, bugs happen. False positives too. But it could also be the beginning of the end for your disk (or even the end of the end if the command does not work).
HI man I'm have same problem like you and i'm follow this tutorial: link
A. First we need to delete the old partitions that remain on the USB key.
Open a terminal and type sudo su
Type fdisk -l and note your USB drive letter.
Type fdisk /dev/sdx (replacing x with your drive letter)
Type d to proceed to delete a partition
Type 1 to select the 1st partition and press enter
Type d to proceed to delete another partition (fdisk should automatically select the second partition)
B. Next we need to create the new partition.
Type n to make a new partition
Type p to make this partition primary and press enter
Type 1 to make this the first partition and then press enter
Press enter to accept the default first cylinder
Press enter again to accept the default last cylinder
Type w to write the new partition information to the USB key
Type umount /dev/sdx1 (replacing x with your drive letter)
C. The last step is to create the fat filesystem.
Type mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdx1 (replacing x with your USB key drive letter)
fdisk: failed to write disklabel: Operation not permitted
Jul 5, 2019 at 12:50
Seems like the same question as this superuser topic, and this answer worked for me. It says: Download the file AlcorMP_5T2F_6T2F_2011-11-10.02, and execute it (in MS Win). Except this last resort, it's likely that usual methods don't work.
Wow. There're two problems. 1) You shouldn't do that kind of things. At least, after running it, you should restore the factory default of the OS. 2) I searched for that tool, but it seems to be gone. alcormicro.com used to deliver it.
Well...If you want, I can send it to you via email. I'm the author of the tool "at-home-modifier" From that page, you can find my email from the file "README". Of course you should not run executables received from someone you can't trust.
More recommendable advise is: I'm sorry, but give it up.
I tried to create a bootable usb using my pendrive. Some error occurred and and the drive became read only. I could not format it in windows or gparted in linux directly. Could not create partitions using fdisk either. Desperately tried many solutions and they did not work. Thought of installing linux on the drive so that it could remove the read only and later I could format it. Following are the steps.
Hope this works for you too. All the best.
I had this same problem with a thumb drive lately.
What I did was, other than checking permission issue etc.
This worked for me without something as extreme to re-format the drive.
dd if=/some/file of=/dev/sdcto see what happens?dd: failed to open '/dev/sdc': Read-only file system