[Cialug] Modifying a read-only flash drive

[Jonathan A. Kollasch]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:13:18AM -0500, Matt Breitbach wrote:
> My little brother gave me a little 2GB USB key that he got from a vendor and
> it only has one little problem - there is a 4MB read-only drive full of
> vendor crapola on it.
> 
> I'd like to remove that partition and merge it into the main system, or just
> fry it completely.  It's currently read-only, and I can't seem to find a way
> to disable it.  There's no external switch, and upon dis-assembly there
> doesn't seem to be anything on the circuit board that would indicate a
> read-only switch.
> 
> I've tried using DBAN to just wipe the entire thing, but it actually sees
> two physical disks on the USB key.  Is there any way to remove the read-only
> switch on this, or am I stuck with 4MB of vendor crap popping up every time
> I insert the stick?

At least SanDisk has a utility to do something like this to their U3 drives.

	Jonathan Kollasch