Resolved Flash drive

I don't know if this is considered hardware or not. If not maybe you can send the question to the right place.
I have a USB flash drive for my long-gone pc with Win 10 preinstalled from the pc maker (HP). I would like to know if I can erase it and use it for other things. I'm concerned it may start a Win 10 installation if I plug it in to my Win 11 pc. It's still new, I have never used it. Any thoughts?

 

Plug it in and format it.

 

Thank You.

 

Hi, I thought this issue was solved. It's not. The drive is write protected. I removed the write protection using diskpart and regedit to verify it. I still can't format it because it still claims to be protected. I also tried SD card formatter. It's a 16GB Microsoft flash drive. That is a good-sized drive to waste. Any more ideas?

 

I don't know what else to tell you. That size drive is worth about 5 bucks. It is small in size in todays times.

 

Yea, I guess it's time to recycle. Thanks.

 

There's nothing there of any use that works. I tried the AOMEI PM free, already. I don't know if the pro version would either but it's not worth the hassle. Thanks.