USB drive stuck on read only

disk-utilityfilesystemntfsusb

So my usb drive is stuck on read only and I have tried many different options which I have gotten from different websites.

I have tried to restore/erase in disk utility but the options are greyed out. I have also tried entering recovery mode and erasing the USB drive from there but with no luck. I have also tried using macfuse (with NTFS-3g installed)however without any success, but I am happy to try this option again if anyone has some ideas on how to do it as I wasn't to sure what I was doing and I was really just copy and pasting codes.

The USB is formatted as a MS-DOS (FAT32) if that helps.

Its really annoying because I cannot erase or edit or delete or do anything with any of the files. I do not mind if fixing it means I lose all the data.

Sorry if this is on the wrong stack exchange website, i'm pretty new to it all.

I have also tried turning my computer on and off again if that helps.

Thank you very much guys.

Best Answer

Plug the USB drive into any Windows computer.

Navigate to "My Computer" in Windows Explorer (click Start->My Computer[near the top right of the window]).

Right-click on the USB drive:

  • Windows 7:
    • Should be listed under "Devices with Removable Storage"
  • Windows XP and older:
    • Should just be listed in a list of all drives installed on the computer

Click "Format".

Choose options you want to format as, make sure the "Read Only" button is deselected, and make sure the "Hidden" button is also deselected, and click "OK".

Congratulations! Your USB drive has now been re-formatted. You (should) now be able to format it using Mac OSX.

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