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I currently have a Windows 10 pen drive that isn't in use at the moment. I try to format the drive on disks, and the terminal using mkfs.vfat /dev/sdc1 and all I get is;

mkfs.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24)
mkfs.vfat: unable to open /dev/sdc1: Read-only file system

Is there a way to format this to any file system? I'd like to use it for other things.

Disks view of the drive

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  • have you tried gparted ... try deleting the partitions ... since its bootable install drive or something like that .. it will probably have more than one .. after the USB drive is completely void of partitions you can create a new one and format it to your liking
    – John Orion
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 19:18
  • gparted error, "Can't write to dev/sdc, because it is opened read-only"
    – rvcabc
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 19:24
  • There's a reason why I like and use linux more than windows
    – rvcabc
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 19:24
  • Maybe try using GParted to create a new MBR partition table?
    – wjandrea
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 19:41
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    @rvcabc ok you got it from Microsoft ... so its probably not a USB drive .. its probably a ROM (read only memory) ... just a chip that has the OS install programmed on it and doesn't have any capability of writing to it. that would be my best guess.
    – John Orion
    Commented Jan 30, 2018 at 19:56

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Microsoft made their Windows 10 pen drives read-only to prevent using it for anything other than the intention (based on the comments on the question).

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