How old is the USB flashdrive? And how often is it used?

Might want to backup the files on that drive very soon.

i got it in september of 2020.

There is a non zero chance the drive is dead and has gone to read only to allow you to pull data. Same tech as ssd's, they only have so many writes in them, and when it hits that point it goes read only to allow you to preserve data

it's not even 3 years old; never had this issue with other usb flash drives. strange.

Yeah, if it's what I think, you need to do a lot of erasing and writing... or there is a manufacturer defect that just popped up

i can't even format the drive from the command prompt because it tells me it's write protected. when i use DISKPART and tell it to clear the read only mode, it executes the command, but then goes right back to 'read mode: Yes' when i check it.

sorry I phrased that wrong cause I was typing on my phone. I mean "you would have needed to do a lot of erasing and writing". Sadly I don't use a lot of USB drives so I can't really say how to troubleshoot further.

i pieced together what you meant; i use that particular drive going between my desktop PC and my laptop while working, so maybe it did just wear out.

runei is 100% correct if diskpart did that. going into read only mode is the end of life step for modern flash drives before total failure, so you can recover the data before the integrity of those files becomes corrupt.

SCF:

Suck all the info off of it.
Chuck it.
Fuggeddabouddit.

:)

they're only $20, so it's no big deal. it's just annoying.

#firstworldproblems ;)

maybe I'll try a different brand though. this one is the SanDisk 256GB Ultra Fit USB 3.1 Flash Drive. i'm open to other brand suggestions; just want it 25GB though.

Nah, SanDisks are my go-to. Had one go through the laundry with no ill effects. :)

that's not what they mean by 'file clean up'

Scan the USB drive for viruses, and do a system scan just in case.

As stupid as it sounds, check for a physical switch on the side of the drive with a lock symbol next to it. If it has one, it can be pretty easy to accidentally hit that.

If it doesn't have a physical switch, you can try some Registry Editing. You'll want to open Registry Editor and check HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies and see if its value is set to anything other than 0. If it is, just double-click it and change it to 0, and that should fix the issue.

If StorageDevicePolicies is set to 0 by default, then you can try to update security permissions. In the properties tab, check the file system. Your USB drive sounds like it's a FAT32 filesystem since it doesn't have the Security tab. Go to Sharing > Advanced Sharing > Share this Folder > Permissions. Make sure Everyone is selected, and make sure the Change entry under 'Permissions' is checked to allow it. Then hit OK.

If none of that works, then you have a corrupted filesystem on that USB drive and need to just get a new one. Back up your files as best you can, and attempt to format it as an NTFS filesystem to see if you can recover it, but I wouldn't. You got a bad stick, and each time you format it you'll lose space until it bricks up again.

i've done the above, and no change. i've already copied the data so i won't be losing anything. it uses a exFAT file system, and I can't change it, but I will make its replacement NTFS.