Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia Peripherals thumb drive

OS 10.12.6
I have my son' thumb drive which is read only and I cannot delete anything.
I tried dragging to the trash and also D/U. In D/U, the window shows Name: Untitled,
Format: Mac OS Extended (Journaled) & Scheme: GUID Partion Map

I image there must be a way of deleting it. Anyone please?

jaybass

Are you trying to reformat (erase) the thumb drive or do you want to delete specific items? I'm not sure from your post.

If the former, select the drive in the DU window and use DU's Erase tab.

If the latter, do a Get Info on the drive and, in Sharing & Permissions, see if you can change everything to Read & Write.

Using the erase option in DU I cannot delete anything on the drive. Nor can I change it to read & write.

Thanks Jon

jaybass

Does DU pop up any sort of dialog box, or is it just that everything you'd like to do is grayed out?

Some thumb drives have read-only hardware switches. They are usually tiny and hard to spot unless one knows to look for them.

The symptoms you describe are consistent with a hardware write-lock.

That's a new one; thanks for posting it.

Just to clarify, the lock is a physical switch, NOT software.

Artie,

Here is what appears.

Screen Shot 2020-07-11 at 9.03.20 AM

jaybass

/Users/admin/Desktop/Screen Shot 2020-07-11 at 9.03.20 AM.png

jaybass

How do I put a screen shot in this post?

jaybass

I can't seem to C&P the screen shot the the DU shows but in the first post I tell you
exactly what appears

jaybass

First post the screenshot on a third party image posting site such as imgur.com or postimage.org. Then put a link to that image in you post on FineTunedMac.

To post a screenshot or other type of image...

1. Go to https://imgur.com/upload.
2. Either drag your image into the window or browse for it.
3. Click on "Copy" in the next window to copy your image's URL to your clipboard.
4. Create a link using FTM's "Create a link..." tags...2nd icon from the left.

Thanks Joe,

https://i.postimg.cc/tJBrhkJL/Screen-Shot-2020-07-11-at-9-03-20-AM.png

jaybass

What does clicking on "Show Details" tell you?

I ran first aid to see if it made a difference...it didn't

https://i.postimg.cc/SK03DZQ9/Screen-Shot-2020-07-11-at-11-32-08-AM.png

jaybass

I'd still like to see what "Show Details" from your "Erase" pane shows.

Under any circumstances, though, I note that your latest screenshot says that your disk is "NO WRITE."

And it also mentions FAT, which is a Windows thing, but I don't know if that's significant.

The "Show details" you want to see is not from the erase pane, it is from the first aid pane which you can read in my previous post.

jaybass

Your first screenshot is of an "Erase" pane, and it's got a "Show Details" radio button. What does clicking on it tell you?

Anyhow, your thumb drive is "NO WRITE" for some reason. Have you looked for a physical switch on it as David suggested?

https://i.postimg.cc/cJhM9J57/Screen-Shot-2020-07-11-at-9-03-20-AM.png

The top window is after running first aid and the bottom one is after running erase.

Clicking the erase button failed, thats why I posted the problem.

jaybass

The image you just posted has got a "Show Details" disclosure arrow that you can click on. I don't think you've shown us those details yet, and they may disclose new, useful info.

Your thumb drive is NO WRITE for some reason, and if it hasn't got a switch as per David, I'm at a loss.

I don't think it's apparently being formatted FAT makes a difference.

Erasing "NEW 1" and creating "Untitled" After clicking show details, the following 3 items appear:
Unmounting disk

Couldn't open device

Operation failed

Postimage wouldn't let me post any more images.

jaybass

OK, that relates back to whatever is making your drive NO WRITE.

Have you looked for a switch? (If you post an identifying pic of your drive I may be able to find the switch for you if there is one.)

(Try Imgur next time you need to post multiple images; I've never run into a limit with them.)

There is no switch on that thumb drive. It's a 64Gb ONN drive...one I've never seen before. After all this back & forth, I'm still looking for answers.

Thanks Artie

jaybass

Assuming you have read access to the drive...

1. Select it in finder
2. Press ⌘I (Command+I)
3. At the bottom of the Info window look at Sharing & Permissions (scroll down to the bottom of that image)
4. If that indicates you have "Read Only" permission,
   1. Click on the padlock at the bottom right corner of the Get Info window
   2. Enter the password for your administrative account
   3. Change your privilege to Read & Write
5. If there is a mechanical or software lock on the drive, there will be a notation, I believe under "more Info" the drive is "Locked"
6. If your son uses Windows, there are software locks that can be applied to a thumb drive. For a while at least, these locks were a standard and automatically included in many thumb drive brands. All required Windows computers to unlock. 😠

NOTE I just read some reviews of ONN brand thumb drives and they were not just bad they were terrible. Many reports of failures and even reports of "Disk Write Protected". Does that look familiar?

Joe, I did what you said but there is no padlock in the corner. I also checked out a Kingston & Lexar drive and there wasn't a padlock there either. If there is supposed to be one, can this be rectified? I sent my Son a copy of you response and I assume he will toss it. BTW he has 21" 2020 iMac.

Thank you.

jaybass