(old)Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Yesterday I attempted to delete some stuff I had put on a Hewlett-Packard USB flash memory, and ROX said it couldn't do it because the stuff was write-protected. This happened with most of the files and folders I tried to delete, I think ROX did delete the first thing I told it to, but then refused to do any of the rest. I poked around in the permissions and couldn't see any reason why ROX would say the memory was write protected.

Then it occurred to me to see what GParted had to say about the USB flash memory. Oddly, GParted found that it was flagged as bootable. I say oddly because I didn't do it, the thing was that way right out of the package. Since I didn't intend to boot from it, I had GParted remove the "bootable" flag. After I closed GParted, I tried again to delete the files and folders and ROX complied without any complaint!

This "write protected" problem crops up periodically in the forum. Perhaps the first question to ask is whether the flash drive is flagged as bootable.

Hmm, that really shouldn't have any effect. Did you unmount and then remount the drive after using gparted?

That error nearly always means that the drive is not mounted read-write. The cause of that can be various things. At other times, you may get I/O errors when trying to remove items. These are usually caused by disk/flash errors which can be fixed with fsck -unless the filesystem is FAT or ntfs.

After mounting the FAT32 flash drive to try deleting the first time, I unmounted the flash drive in order to use GParted on it. Then I remounted it again to try deleting for the second time.

Recently, someone cleaned up a flash drive with "dosfsck /dev/sdbx".

Your other choice is to copy the files you want to keep to a temporary location, then reformat the drive.

1. Some weeks/months back...
I had a "Verbatim" 1GB Flash Drive that was being reported as "Read-only".
Turned out it had gone faulty, and the fix was to low-level re-format it using a special program.
Once that had been done it was back to normal functionality.

2. See "Success!" reported in THIS POST...
As a result of using "Super_Stick_Recovery_Tool_V1.0.2.19.rar" [don't know where you might get it now].

I guess @amigo was unto this:

Routinely - as a first check - when usbs -unexpectedly become "writeprotected":
Unmount the -"write-protected" - usb-stick
go to the mountpoint-directory /mnt/sdxy in ROX
The mountpoint-directory ought to be empty -
otherwise mount-confusion may arise.

Reason for weird stuff in the mountpoint-directory -
may be that NOTHING was mounted on the mountpoint-directory
when a script/user expected otherwise..
i.e like cp <somestuff> /mnt/sdxy
1) usb mounted on mnt/sdxy -> stuff goes onto the usb
2) nothing mounted on mnt/sdxy -> stuff goes into the mountpoint-directory
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The "writeprotection" may be viewed as a filesystemprotection - in case
of a fucked-up mount.-binding.
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As said - a first check .....
before calling on Gparted etc.



Cheers