Write protect error when saving to thumb drive

A couple of weeks ago, I bought a 60 gb usb thumb drive (PNY is the OEM), and it has been working smoothly until today. Since this afternoon, I have been unable to transfer files onto this thumb drive. I get a Write Protect error message. See the uploaded photo.

I have seen this page here, and tonight I went through the entire list. I tried reformatting, but was told that Windows cannnot do this, because the disk is write protected. I went into Windows tools and tried to access the Computer Management console, but was still unable to get Windows to format the drive. I didn't see the registry key, so I made that key as described in the page I linked to, and rebooted twice, but still no luck.

I did manage to copy the files on the flash drive, to my laptop, so I can easily put them onto the usb drive when I reformat it or replace it with a new one.

My questions:
(1) Is there anything else I can do to get this thumb drive to work properly?

(2) If I have to get a new one, should I stay away from PNY thumb drives--are they more liable to this problem?

(3) I believe I am pretty careful about only removing the drive from a computer after I have had windows "eject" the drive from clicking on the thumb drive icon in the system tray. But is this problem what happens, if you pull it out without properly ejecting the drive? If not, what might have caused this?

 

The 'Safe' way is to use (safe to eject media) but you can just pull the USB thumb drive with little risk these days.
Do you get the option to set the transfer if you Right click on the File > Properties > eg Read only etc.

 

I cannot transfer files onto the drive, even if the file itself is NOT marked Read only. In fact, the files that alerted me to this issue, were not checked read only.

 

Is there a web site for the USB drive manufacturer?
I have in the past downloaded troubleshoot info regarding problems that might occur with the USB drive and general advice on how to care for the drive.
I did a print out and will see if I can find it and Post later.

 

just went to their website, no drivers or downloads for this product. I searched their help page and nothing came up for "write protect."

 

Just called and was told that Best Buy has a 14 day return policy. Too bad my thumb drive took a dive a few days ago, bought it on August 23. Oh well looks like I'll buy from places that let me return it in 30 days. Lesson learned. This has got to be an all time winner for a product going south on me like this.

 

https://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=...hUKEwij1dr70szkAhVJo48KHTIFDVEQ4dUDCAU&uact=5

The info I printed related to Transcend SD card, sorry it isn't related to thumb drive.
Try the links above as you should be able to remove write protection if the drive has only been on your computer.

 

the process in the video you linked to was one of the ones listed in the link I gave above, which I'd already tried. I did it again with the narrator in your video, but it still didn't work.

Thanks anyways for your responses.

 

When places don't give me 30 days, I buy a new one and return the bad one in a couple of days after I buy a new one. More than one way to skin a cat like they try to skin you.

 

Hi Paul, One of the people who used the video instruction commented that it didn't work so he tried it in Safe Mode and it fixed it
Worth a try?

 

I did manage to boot into safe mode (finally), but unfortunately the diskpart utility and formatting didn't work any better then.

This seems like such a bizarre thing. I'm still not sure if this is a glitch, and Windows has done this to my thumb drive, or if this is a hardware issue, I don't know. Or how to avoid this in the future. Oh well I'm glad this happened on the cheapest 64 gig drive I could find. Didn't waste that much money.