Flash Drive Write Protect Problem

Due to "unsafe" removal, I now have a corrupted 1Gb Flash Drive that
cannot be Erased, Formatted or Changed as any action results in a "Write
Protected" message. There is NO access to any Write Protect switch
on/inside the device. Can anything be done to restore proper opertion??
The drive performed OK prior to the "unsafe" removal. I have tested the
drive in WinXP, Vista, Win2K and Mac computers to Format/Erase with no
luck.

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:23:34 -0500, jgulow@webtv.net (John the WebTV
Man) wrote:

>Due to "unsafe" removal, I now have a corrupted 1Gb Flash Drive that
>cannot be Erased, Formatted or Changed as any action results in a "Write
>Protected" message. There is NO access to any Write Protect switch
>on/inside the device. Can anything be done to restore proper opertion??
>The drive performed OK prior to the "unsafe" removal. I have tested the
>drive in WinXP, Vista, Win2K and Mac computers to Format/Erase with no
>luck.

That's a tough one. There is a utility available from HP that is made
specifically for formatting flash drives.

It might work.

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

File Info: HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8

This utility will format any USB flash drive, with your choice of FAT,
FAT32, or NTFS partition types.

Optionally you can also make the disk BOOTABLE by specifying a file
location.

John the WebTV Man wrote:
> Due to "unsafe" removal, I now have a corrupted 1Gb Flash Drive that
> cannot be Erased, Formatted or Changed as any action results in a "Write
> Protected" message. There is NO access to any Write Protect switch
> on/inside the device. Can anything be done to restore proper opertion??
> The drive performed OK prior to the "unsafe" removal. I have tested the
> drive in WinXP, Vista, Win2K and Mac computers to Format/Erase with no
> luck.

Unsafe removal can crash the file system but (usually) not
the device. It's just coincidence. Maybe it died because
its time was over.
Drive and data are gone. Rescue might be possible by professional
data rescue but this is expensive.

Uwe