Hi I have a flash memory which is damaged and became read-only. I want to delete my data. How can I do so? Is there any way to make it completely impossible to read files on my flash memory?
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Why not formatting it?– LucaBOct 28, 2010 at 14:26
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It became read-only I can't delete or format it. The files are not read-only,The whole thing is.– user12345Oct 28, 2010 at 14:35
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3 Answers
Without destroying? You can repair it first. Assuming your flash is /dev/sdb1:
sudo fsck -a /dev/sdb1
If it succeeds, turn it on and off, then delete files.
If the drive has become read-only on the hardware level because of an electronic problem or such, your only way is to destroy it, I suppose...
But some USB memory sticks can be made read-only with a switch, either a hardware switch (I guess you would know if it had one) or a software switch. E.g. if it's an U3-compatible device, you might be able to do something with u3-tool.
The original question, in part, was: "Is there any way to make it completely impossible to read files on my flash memory?"
To make the contents on the flash drive unreadable, use the 'shred' command.
Of course, before that command would work, write access to the flash drive would be necessary. In the event that write access cannot be enabled, the flash drive will need to be physically destroyed.
