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[Lupin6]

A friend of mine is having trouble with a USB drive that has suddenly become "write locked". Very annoying. Does anyone have any idea how to fix that? I tried to use the basic search engine and got a result about a software tool to use, but I have no idea if it was legitimate.

[wierd]

You CAN'T.

Or rather--- you would need to disassemble the USB stick, solder very tiny wires to its motherboard to gain access to its microcontroller, then reprogram that microcontroller to disable the lock.


So-- Unless you are a a PhD student at MIT, OR, are an ace level hardware wizard, you can't do this. And this is by design.


The lock is there because the flash memory cells have become unreliable. The device is protecting the data on the device against corruption, by preventing you from changing it.


What you SHOULD do:

1) Buy an identical model flash drive.
2) Use a disk imaging program to do a raw sector copy from the locked drive to the brand new one.
3) Use the brand new one.

[Lupin6]

Yeah, my friend already confirmed that the drive was totally busted. Though now that makes me worry about my own Flash drives in the future...

Thank you for replying, though. Just out of curiosity, can you recommend a disc-imaging program to use in the horrible, nightmarish eventuality that my own USB flash drive breaks down? I keep a lot of vital files on there, so I'd like to have something bookmarked in case I need it.