Pen drive shows device is write protected while formatting. So please give me solution so that I can format the Pen drive & use it again. Kingston Pen drive with 4 GB capacity. Using Windows XP operating system

Download this tool it will help you:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?swItem=MTX-UNITY-I23839

Save the contents in the pen drive (this process will delete all the files in ur pen drive) and then download this http://www.apacer.com/en/support/downloads/Repair_v2.9.1.8A.zip,unzip it n run.....click "Format". Make sure u have connected only the pen drive u wanna recover to computer,this tool is very blind n it doesnt allow u to choose which removable drive to format..it formats the first removable disk (seems so). Gud luck

LLFTOOL is a utility for low-level disk drive formatting,
also supports formatting of FLASH cards using a card-reader.


1. Download this tool:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4040651/LLFTOOL.EXE

2. Format pen drive

(WARNING: After running this low level format tool,
the whole USB flash disk surface will be fully erased.
Therefore, data restoration will be impossible after using this utility!)

Insert your pen drive, RUN this tool AMVO-VARIANTS by keeping in any drive , then restart the system without removing pen drive from system , after reboot your pen drive be ok.

Hi, Make sure you do not have any read only files in the pendrive or system files which may not allow the pen drive to be formatted. Turn on show hidden files and check too. Change the properties of the files which are read only and then u must be able to format it. Also do check if the pen drive can be password protected. Since some pendrives in the market do have this feature. Feel free to post again if the problem persists

Far too often these little things have an almost invisible read/write protect button on them. Look carefully, over the entire surface of the USB Flash Drive. You might have this switch turned to Write Protect, which means there is nothing you can do, until you turn it the other way, and allow the device to be written to.

Cheers!
-a.

This seems to be the problem of most of us these days and some of our readers who wanted to know the methods how they can remove the Write Protected error from their USB drives like Pen Drives and memory cards.


What is Write Protected error and why it happens?
In the Write Protected error, we can’t write or copy any data in our flash drives and even can’t format the drive.
There are many reasons that cause this problem, let’s see solutions of them.
Solutions:
• First of all try to locate a small switch (if any, that you may have not noticed) at some place on the drive or memory card reader. This is the prime reason for this error. If there is one, switch it to the other side to turn the protection off.
• Yes I know this problem is also occurring these days without this switch but not to worry. Just download this helpful software form here

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDD-Low-Level-Format-Tool.shtml

and run it to execute a “low-level format” on the drive. This software is quite handy and may take few attempts to actually remove the error.
• The problem can also be caused by some virus activity so just get it scanned by some updated good anti virus which may solve your problem.
• BUT if none of the methods listed above solves your problem then your pen drive might have gone corrupted, so just get it replaced.
Hope any of the methods listed above solves your problem.
Update 1:
After the low level format, you may need to “Partition the drive“. Dont worry, partitioning a pen drive means allocating it its File System and Cluster Size that was lost after the Low Level Format.
For that:

1. Run diskmgmt.msc in Run.
2. In the disk management window, select the pen drive, right click on it and click on Format.
3. Now choose the File System and Allocation Unit Size and do not check the boxes below.

Click OK and the drive will be reusable after this.
Update 2 (Better Solution):
Follow the steps in this post and just put the value 0 (zero) in step 5.
This will surely solve your problem now.


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Try this,
1.
Check out if the USB drive has a small swich for write protection. If its there try toggling the switch.

2.
Windows can all write protect flash drives. Check out this registry path,

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies.

You may find a key here on the right side by the name 'WriteProtect'. If it's not there this would not be the cause of problem. If it's there, make sure that the value is 0.

Please let me know if this does'nt work.

Remove Jet Flash Write Protection Insert the mini CD that came with the USB Flash disk. Start JF Utility.exe in the JF Utility directory. If it complains that the disk is write protected, choose "Continue" Choose "Partition" Answer "Yes" to losing all your data (Since this becomes a problem usually after formating the disk in WinXP or Win9x, you will most probably not have any data on there in any case) Choose "Public Area Only (Single Partition)", Then "OK", Then "OK" again. Unplug the device, reinsert device, and voila!- no more dark secret areas or write protection on your disk!