I cannot format or copy files into USB pendrive

[ppbiju]

I have tried to format the usb pendrive from disk and found the format menu is not active then i tried
fdisk -w /dev/sdb and get
fdisk: cannot open /dev/sdb: Permission denied

after that i isssued the following command and got the result as follows
dmesg | tail
[ 1180.713494] usb-storage 2-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
[ 1180.714416] scsi host3: usb-storage 2-2:1.0
[ 1181.722536] scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic Flash Disk 8.07 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
[ 1181.723656] sd 3:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 1181.724290] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 30720000 512-byte logical blocks: (15.7 GB/14.6 GiB)
[ 1181.724933] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on
[ 1181.724934] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00
[ 1181.725588] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 1183.141171] sdb: sdb1
[ 1183.144160] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk


please help

[CatKiller]

[ 1181.724933] sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on

That's generally a physical slider to protect the contents of the drive.

[Skaperen]

did you slide it to the off position and try again?

[1fallen]

also wouldn't hurt to see what shows with:

ls -l /dev/sd*

[ppbiju]

the pendrive do not have a physical slider

[ppbiju]

also wouldn't hurt to see what shows with:

ls -l /dev/sd*

I have got the following output


brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 10 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda10
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 11 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda11
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 2 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 3 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 4 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda4
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 5 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda5
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 6 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda6
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 7 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda7
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 8 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda8
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 9 Nov 7 08:49 /dev/sda9
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 Nov 7 08:55 /dev/sdb
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 17 Nov 7 08:55 /dev/sdb1

[C.S.Cameron]

I have seen this a few times, sounds like your pendrive is dead, if you are lucky it may be read only to the existing data.
I have a SD card that I use as a server that went read only, but still works as a server booted toram.

[1fallen]

See if this helps: https://sharadchhetri.com/2013/12/19...ive-in-ubuntu/

[ppbiju]

See if this helps: https://sharadchhetri.com/2013/12/19...ive-in-ubuntu/

I have tried but get only the following out put


~$ sudo su -
[sudo] password for biju:
:~# df -Th
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev devtmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 790M 1.5M 789M 1% /run
/dev/sda8 ext4 46G 36G 7.8G 83% /
tmpfs tmpfs 3.9G 105M 3.8G 3% /dev/shm
tmpfs tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock
tmpfs tmpfs 3.9G 0 3.9G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs tmpfs 790M 44K 790M 1% /run/user/1000
/dev/sdb1 vfat 15G 2.6G 13G 18% /media/biju/bkup
tmpfs tmpfs 790M 0 790M 0% /run/user/0
:~# umount /media/biju/bkup
:~# dosfsck -a /dev/sdb1
fsck.fat 4.1 (2017-01-24)
open: Read-only file system

pl. help

note : I have used this pendrive to create bootable disk by using startup disk creator one or more times with ubuntu 18.04 after that I just formatted by right clicking on nautilus and copied the iso after that the disk become readonly. ie. I have used only 3 / 4 times after getting it. Is there is any way to factory reset this pendrive

[1fallen]

Well then that's not very encouraging, I have only one suggestion now, Download a Gparted iso found here: https://gparted.org/livecd.php.
Now this may prove to be a challenge if you don't have a source to burn it to. IE: USB/CD/DVD.
If you do, boot to it (Gparted) and see if that will sort it out. (A Re-format is what your after) this is my preferred method. ***Be careful to pick the USB Drive and not your Installed OS.
If your unable to burn and boot to the Live Gparted session, try to install it in your current Desktop:

sudo apt install gparted

I have seen for whatever reason Gnome-Disk tool have the same results as your now seeing.(Read Only)
Good Luck