Author Topic: usb stick  (Read 229 times)

Offline kayzed1

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usb stick
« on: March 02, 2026, 04:36:38 PM »
Can  anybody help: i have 3 or 4 usb sticks from Win10 loads i did on old laptops, just thought as now old i could maybe recover the 16Gig sticks, trouble is they say write protected when i try to format them. They do not have a lock switch on them..Can it be done please?.
Cheers Lyn.

Offline vtsteam

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Re: usb stick
« Reply #1 on: March 02, 2026, 09:22:02 PM »
Yes, probably. But I use Linux so not sure how to do it from Win. If you have one writeable USB drive, you could possibly put a Puppy Linux or EasyOS on that, reboot to it, and then use the program gparted in them to reformat the others.

If that doesn't work a disk imaging program should be able to put a new image on it. EasyDD does that in Linux. Once re-imaged you should be able to run Gparted on it and reformat to any type of disk. Probably FAT32 to keep compatible with most thumbdrives.
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Offline vtsteam

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Re: usb stick
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2026, 09:28:29 PM »
If you still run Windows, you can use a program called USB-Image-Tool to write an EasyOS image to a USB thumbdrive. Or any other disk image you might want by preference. Or it might be able to simply reformat the disk -- I don't know for sure, haven't tried it, because I don't run Windows.

USB-Image-Tool is available here:

Information:

https://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/

Download:

https://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/download/
I love it when a Plan B comes together!
Steve
"www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sDubB0-REg"

Offline kayzed1

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Re: usb stick
« Reply #3 on: Today at 06:29:30 AM »
Thanks Steve, i will give it a try :smart:

Offline Brass_Machine

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Re: usb stick
« Reply #4 on: Today at 08:05:32 AM »
You could try deleting the partition through diskpart and then re-creating and formatting if you don't care about the data.

To delete a protected or hidden partition using DiskPart, use the delete partition override command.  This forces DiskPart to bypass protection that prevents standard deletion, such as for OEM, recovery, or system-protected partitions.

Steps to Delete a Partition with Override:

1. Open Command Prompt as Administrator.
2. Type diskpart and press Enter.
3. Run list disk to identify the correct disk.
4. Select the disk: select disk X (replace X with the disk number).
5. List partitions: list partition.
6. Select the target partition: select partition Y (replace Y with the partition number).
7. Execute the override: delete partition override.
8. Type exit to close DiskPart.

Warning: This command permanently deletes data. Ensure you?ve backed up any important files. You cannot delete the system, boot, or active paging file partitions using this method.
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