Fix the Patriot USB write protected issue
My Patriot USB Memory stick flash drive got stuck in write protected mode. The first glimpse that something was awry I got when using Disk Utility on my MacBook Air. All options were grayed out, except for verify disk. Running it resulted in a message letting me know that the disk needed repair. The repair process in turn gave me a result of Error: -69877: Couldn’t open device. Nice!
Getting a hold of a Windows 7 running PC didn’t yield much better results. Some sites suggested to boot into safe mode, and from there to format the disk. I used diskpart in an attempt to delete the partition, to no avail. Same result, the drive is write protected.
The utility resets your Patriot USB flash drive to factory settings and works only on a Windows PC
Gathering for the many user posted comments, this must be a common problem with this type of USB drive. Going to Patriot online, under support there was a utility posted that addresses this very issue. It seems that for whatever reason, the drive locks itself into write protected mode and only a low level format with this utility can bring it back to life.
The fix for the write protect issue
There it is, don’t give up on your memory stick and throw it in the trash quite yet. Unfortunately, you’ll loose all data on you drive, but at least you’ll be able to fix your Patriot USB write protected problem with the provided utility. This one will low level format your drive and reset it to factory specifications, like when you received it new. And by now it should be clear not to use this flash drive for any important files, as they could be lost at any minute.
Download the format utility, unzip and select restore, but on a Windows PC only.
format tool says: format fails!
please help
Me too. Low level format will not run because the device is write protected. Catch 22!.
Was able to down load an couple of files before it some how locked up so that is $20.00 lost. won’t be buying no more Patriot usb drives, I just hope the 2nd 1 I have don’t do the same thing.
My 128GB quick drive usb is locked after download an few files. Tried to Download the format utility, unzip and select restore, but on a Windows PC only. It has an Error that does not work for PC. It looks like the MAC utility works.
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Tags: flash, memory, usb
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So what am I supposed to do now. I guess I’m just out my money, but I will let anyone know NOT to buy Patriot 128 GB usb Quick Drive because of this reason.
Format fails!
Write-protection doesn’t stop you from copying your data off onto another drive before reformatting, so you haven’t lost your data. You just can’t add any more. Don’t scare people like that!
Thanks for the tip about Patriot’s utility. I hope it works.
Patriot’s utility is 404 (and so is the link). Is there a backup source for the file? Or would some other partition utility fix the problem?
I also am getting a 404 error so an answer to this question would be very much appreciated.