what to do with a usb-stick that has gone 'read-only', i.e. half dead and contains confidential data?

[Edouard Perreault]

so I got this sandisk usb-stick, solid metal, that after a few years of heavy use seems to be giving up the ghost...
it is still readable but no more writeable... also, I cannot erase / partition it no more in diskutility.
I guess it's a goner... ?
but the data on it is still readable. and physical destruction is not that simple as it would be with a plastic stick,
it's remarkably solid hardware. so how do I undo this stick? mordor is kinda far...

Using the Windows Terminal (Administrator), it's possible to easily reset a drive (if you have a PC).
This method has already worked for me to erase a USB drive that was stuck and no longer appeared in any formatting application.
Procedure:

Open Command Prompt (in administrator mode)

Type:

1. diskpart

2. list disk

3. Select the disk in question from the list using the following command: select disk X (Be careful, don't make a mistake, this disk will be erased)

4. clean

5. convert gpt

6. create partition primary

7. exit

Then, all you have to do is connect your drive to your Mac and initialize it to APFS.

 

[Basic75]

(low level format is what your looking for)
change structure to>>
MS-DOS (FAT32) or ExFAT.
Then bring it back to APFS.
-------------------
Sometimes i have had good luck with using Linux Live disk and use partition manager to straighten things out but you need a windows machine for that.
You will "destroy all files" using these methods.

That's not a low-level format. No hard drive sold in the last couple of decades allows for a low-level format, at least not that easily.

For SSDs I'm not sure what the equivalent of a low-level format would be. Perhaps a whole-disk TRIM, though that is still not the same thing.

If you want to trash a drive's partition table and be guaranteed to start from scratch you can simply dd a few MB from /dev/zero to the drive's device.

In case you don't know it, dd is a shell command that comes with every Mac and can be used from Terminal.app.

 

[elgato2024]

Classic

1 hour of hard drive destruction 🤣 i'll watch it when i'm dead.
maybe I'll just go to the zoo and feed my stick to the t-rex or some such thing

 

[dadders6]

so I got this sandisk usb-stick, solid metal, that after a few years of heavy use seems to be giving up the ghost...
it is still readable but no more writeable... also, I cannot erase / partition it no more in diskutility.
I guess it's a goner... ?
but the data on it is still readable. and physical destruction is not that simple as it would be with a plastic stick,
it's remarkably solid hardware. so how do I undo this stick? mordor is kinda far...

You can't re-format it? After you save what you can. If it reformats, then you use First Aid to actually erase it completely.

 

[elgato2024]

You can't re-format it? After you save what you can. If it reformats, then you use First Aid to actually erase it completely.

nope. it's gone read-only as read-only as it gets...

I don't have no winblows machine but I doubt that the suggested solutions via win would work...

 

[Edouard Perreault]

nope. it's gone read-only as read-only as it gets...

I don't have no winblows machine but I doubt that the suggested solutions via win would work...

This is the equivalent of using CMD on Windows for formatting, but on Mac using Terminal. Have you tried it?

https://communities.apple.com/fr/docs/DOC-1243

https://www.collaborativejob.com/8295/comment-formater-une-cle-usb-sur-mac-avec-le-terminal

 

[elgato2024]

This is the equivalent of using CMD on Windows for formatting, but on Mac using Terminal. Have you tried it?

https://communities.apple.com/fr/docs/DOC-1243

https://www.collaborativejob.com/8295/comment-formater-une-cle-usb-sur-mac-avec-le-terminal

salut, no I only tried via the diskutil gui... why do u reckon doing the same via the terminal will be more successful?

 

[Fishrrman]

I'm going to repeat what I said earlier:
If you can't reformat it, can no longer write to it, and want to get rid of the data that's on it...

... then the only way to do so is to physically destroy it.

Really, folks...
What more need be said?

 

[Edouard Perreault]

salut, no I only tried via the diskutil gui... why do u reckon doing the same via the terminal will be more successful?

I don't know if this will be more effective, but it's just another solution; you can always try it and see.
If all the solutions above don't work for you, there shouldn't be much else to do other than prepare a hammer and anvil. ⚒️🤣🤣

 

[elgato2024]

I don't know if this will be more effective, but it's just another solution; you can always try it and see.
If all the solutions above don't work for you, there shouldn't be much else to do other than prepare a hammer and anvil. ⚒️🤣🤣

ah ok, yeah, no i reckon the GUI of diskutil is just calling up those very same routines as when you play with the diskutil command line interface in the terminal...

but I tried, and got the same error message, something like
'Hahaha, nice try. But I've turned your drive into read-only for eternity. Go buy new stuff!'

guess I gotta go find mordor...