Format password protected USB flash on ubuntu

Question

here is the thing my flash disk is password protected when i plugged in Ubuntu i didn't see the flash disc but when i plugged in on windows machine i can see the drive but can't open the drive it says 'format" but when i click on format it says "password protected" is there a way to format my drive and back to the original?

Thanks,

Answer 1

I don't have any experience with password protected flash drives but most probably password protection is a software feature and not the hardware one. If that is the case then you can run gparted on ubuntu and delete the current partition(s) on your flash, then recreate a partition(s) and format it to your desired file system.

To install gparted use:

sudo apt-get install gparted

you can then run it System->Administration->gparted

Update:

Your disk may be failing, try running

sudo badblocks -v /dev/sdb

if the ouput from this command says zero bad blocks then try write mode test to make sure that your disk is fine. Use

sudo badblocks -v -w /dev/sdb

for write mode test.