Moodkiller Posted December 7, 2014 Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 (edited) Wondering if any one else might have some other solution to being able to format a 'write protected' micro SD card. It has an installation of Linux on it which has become corrupt. When I try and format the card with SDFormatter, it reports that the card is write protected. I am using an adaptor plugged into my laptop and have taped up the lock key to assure it doenst get switched when plugging it into the laptop. So I'm confident its not a hardware issue. Things I have tried: • Formating through windows 7, I.e. right click > format (write protected error)• Using 'disk part' suggestion ('attributes disk clear readonly' command <-common Google suggestion)• Registry tweak changing StorageDevicePolicies (http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24736-63-format-write-protected-micro-card#10460239)• Plugging the micro SD card into an android device and formating through there. This "formats" it, but still displays all the content and removes nothing from the disk.• Using a different laptop and OS (Windows 8.1 vs 7)• And as I mentioned earlier, using SDFormatter. At this stage I dont know what else to try. Edited December 7, 2014 by Moodkiller Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnFlower Posted December 7, 2014 Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 >become corrupt >write protected Sounds like it ded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moodkiller Posted December 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 I seriously hope not... This has happened before ("linux" becoming corrupt I mean), but that time around I was able to just reformat and move on. I also say "linux" as its really Raspbian. Its the card that I use on the Pi. I was leaning towards it being a software issue due to this happening once before. There are obviously some major stability issues. If it were 'ded', do you think that Windows would still have detected it? I would have imagined that it wouldn't have and that I could not have read the files on the disk... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnFlower Posted December 7, 2014 Report Share Posted December 7, 2014 Why even fret over this? micro SD cards are as cheap as chips. Get a 8gb one for testing your various things; namely your card reader and card adapter. If they work, buy a new U3 or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† L4ugh Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Have you tried formatting it with linux? Something like gparted or even dd should be able to do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moodkiller Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Why even fret over this? micro SD cards are as cheap as chips. Get a 8gb one for testing your various things; namely your card reader and card adapter. If they work, buy a new U3 or something. I was hoping not to spend anymore on something that could possibly be fixed. As for card readers and adaptors working, I tested the same adaptor in the same computer with a different micro SD card and it reads fine/formats as it should. Ruled out hardware issues. Have you tried formatting it with linux? Something like gparted or even dd should be able to do it. I havent. I was also hoping this may be a last resort as I would have to install linux in a VM environment, set it all up to access the card and then go through with the formatting. Because Im lazy like that. Looking up dd, would something like this work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnFlower Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 That zeros the drive... You honestly don't need to bother with that if you're going to write more data to it. If you are going to go the Linux route, try `sgdisk -Z /dev/superblock' first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
† L4ugh Posted December 8, 2014 Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Yes it should, but johnflower is also right. If you go the dd route, i'd use something like lsblk in your terminal to make sure you have the right drive. You don't want to dd the wrong drive. Any live distro should come with dd so you shouldn't need to worry about installing anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moodkiller Posted December 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted December 8, 2014 Alright, thank you both for the info. I will give it a try and see how things go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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