Solved SSD downloadable for Linux

[davinci74]

Hello men and women. Yeah so I want to ask if I can download Linux OS on a SSD. If yes can anyone reccomend a quality SSD?? Thank Yall for all your comments. Sincerely, davinci74
I bought some dang"on usb sticks on amazon and I can not use any of them. When I try to format I keep getting a notification "write protected". Yeah I'm not a genius when it comes to some things and i thought it was a read/write usb's but apparently they're not, even though the pack mentioned the write speed. It's SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 16gb. Useless

 

[MikeRocor]

I can't say that I've ever heard of a new USB stick being write protected. I'm not even sure they have a write protect capability. So that leaves me to wonder if A) you got screwed and have some broken USB sticks or B) you are not root when trying to format them.

If it's B, I would expect a message more like "permission denied" or "operation not permitted" rather than "write protected", but that might depend on what OS you're starting with. What OS -are- you starting with?

 

[davinci74]

I can't say that I've ever heard of a new USB stick being write protected. I'm not even sure they have a write protect capability. So that leaves me to wonder if A) you got screwed and have some broken USB sticks or B) you are not root when trying to format them.

If it's B, I would expect a message more like "permission denied" or "operation not permitted" rather than "write protected", but that might depend on what OS you're starting with. What OS -are- you starting with?

yeah so i was trying on my windows11 OS to download Ubuntu and every time I try to format to FAT32, it say write protected

 

[MikeRocor]

Well - that just went beyond my geek boundaries - I drew the line at Win10 - and never used that enough to gain any "expertise" with it.

No doubt someone here will be able to help you burn a live ISO to a USB stick so you can start from a linux base then do whatever kind of install you want to whatever media you have... All that assuming your USB stick(s) are actually not trash. It's been so long since I did anything like that starting from Windows that I'm probably not the best one to guide you there.

 

[CaffeineAddict]

This thread seems promising, let us know if any of the solutions worked:

USB turn write protection off

I have a USB which is write protected: dmesg | tail [10098.126089] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on [10098.126098] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00 [10098.126779] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No

askubuntu.com

 

[Condobloke]

You may find a tiny 'switch'....usually along the edge of the stick....look carefully.

They make them that way so that a usb with important info on it won't be picked up and formatted accidentally

fwiw, SanDisk are usually reasonable quality

 

[Brickwizard]

I can't say that I've ever heard of a new USB stick being write protected. I'm not even sure they have a write protect capability.

I'm with you on that. I have a tray full and none have manual write lock on them, only my SD cards,

I have had problems when working on Windows machines, they don't seem to like pen-rives that have been used with Linux, although they have been re-formatted fats [using Linux] re-formatting using windows usually clears the problem,

 

[davinci74]

I'm with you on that. I have a tray full and none have manual write lock on them, only my SD cards,

I have had problems when working on Windows machines, they don't seem to like pen-rives that have been used with Linux, although they have been re-formatted fats [using Linux] re-formatting using windows usually clears the probl

This thread seems promising, let us know if any of the solutions worked:

USB turn write protection off

I have a USB which is write protected: dmesg | tail [10098.126089] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on [10098.126098] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00 [10098.126779] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No

askubuntu.com

Thanks man I’ll figure it out eventually.

 

[davinci74]

You may find a tiny 'switch'....usually along the edge of the stick....look carefully.

They make them that way so that a usb with important info on it won't be picked up and formatted accidentally

fwiw, SanDisk are usually reasonable quality

So I looked thourghly and see no switch. I’m just going to buy another pack of Lexar 16gb USB’s. Because I ran Linux mint live os with no problems. But I’ve followed the instructions to reformat and every time I apply it’s two words. Write Protected

 

[davinci74]

This thread seems promising, let us know if any of the solutions worked:

USB turn write protection off

I have a USB which is write protected: dmesg | tail [10098.126089] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is on [10098.126098] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 80 00 [10098.126779] sd 7:0:0:0: [sdb] No

askubuntu.com

Yeah I could get a solution there. Thanks man I’ll figure it out eventually

 

[MikeWalsh]

You may find a tiny 'switch'....usually along the edge of the stick....look carefully.

They make them that way so that a usb with important info on it won't be picked up and formatted accidentally

@Condobloke :-

You can find some sticks like this, Brian.....but they're usually older models. I haven't seen this "feature" on flash drives for several years....and I buy a LOT of 'em. And of course, the full-size SD/SDHC/SDXC cards all have one of these.

The Sandisk Ultra - I'm guessing the OP probably means the Ultra "Fit".....but I could be wrong - is one of these teeny-weeny 'nano'-sized flash drives. I have no end of these.

80% of its size is just the plug, and the 'cap' is minute.....usually, just big enough to grip with the tip of the thumb & forefinger to pull 'em out. With these, the NAND flash chip is actually inside the plug! Nowhere to put a write-protect switch at all...

SanDisk have had write-protect 'issues' for many years with their flash drives. Much of it eventually got traced back to their chip supplier, Hynix....who refused to accept responsibilty, of course. They only ended an epic court case over this very point a couple of years ago - it had gone on for nearly 12 years by then! - with both sides finally realising the huge amounts of capital they'd wasted during those years. For both stubborn parties, no settlement was ever reached.........but still neither would own up to anything.

(Kinda goes without saying, really; the only folks to feather their nests from this debacle were the lawyers..!)

I joined their forums some years ago because I had one of their drives, gone the same way (the all-plastic Cruzer 'Blades'). They had a long-running thread about this write-protect thing (3 1/2 yrs & counting at that point in time, and running out to over 10,000 posts!). Buried away on an obscure forum page, there used to be a link to a technical blog that went into a lot of detail about the how & the why. I'd link y'all to it, but the link - although still there - is long dead....

@MikeRocor :-

We had a discussion round this point on the Puppy forums, some years back. One of our older members, a retired guy who used to work in the industry, informed us it's possible - under the right circumstances - for the read/write 'bit' inside the drive's controller chip to accidentally get 'flipped' to read-only.

When that happens, the drive is stuffed.....because there is no software way to reset it. The NAND flash is still fine, but the controller chip is no longer allowing data to reach it from the external connection.

This can happen due to a tiny 'static' electric shock. It doesn't take much, with the almost non-existent voltages these things now run on.


Mike.

 

[davinci74]

@Condobloke :-

You can find some sticks like this, Brian.....but they're usually older models. I haven't seen this "feature" on flash drives for several years....and I buy a LOT of 'em. And of course, the full-size SD/SDHC/SDXC cards all have one of these.

The Sandisk Ultra - I'm guessing the OP probably means the Ultra "Fit".....but I could be wrong - is one of these teeny-weeny 'nano'-sized flash drives. I have no end of these.

80% of its size is just the plug, and the 'cap' is minute.....usually, just big enough to grip with the tip of the thumb & forefinger to pull 'em out. With these, the NAND flash chip is actually inside the plug! Nowhere to put a write-protect switch at all...

SanDisk have had write-protect 'issues' for many years with their flash drives. Much of it eventually got traced back to their chip supplier, Hynix....who refused to accept responsibilty, of course. They only ended an epic court case over this very point a couple of years ago - it had gone on for nearly 12 years by then! - with both sides finally realising the huge amounts of capital they'd wasted during those years. For both stubborn parties, no settlement was ever reached.........but still neither would own up to anything.

I joined their forums some years ago because I had one of their drives, gone the same way (the all-plastic Cruzer 'Blades'). They had a long-running thread about this write-protect thing (3 1/2 yrs & counting at that point in time). Buried away on an obscure forum page, there used to be a link to a technical blog that went into a lot of detail about the how & the why. I'd link y'all to it, but the link - although still there - is long dead....

@MikeRocor :-

We had a discussion round this point on the Puppy forums, some years back. One of our older members, a retired guy who used to work in the industry, informed us it's possible - under the right circumstances - for the read/write 'bit' inside the drive's controller chip to accidentally get 'flipped' to read-only.

When that happens, the drive is stuffed.....because there is no software way to reset it. The NAND flash is still fine, but the controller chip is no longer allowing data to reach it from the external connection.

This can happen due to a tiny 'static' electric shock. It doesn't take much, with the almost non-existent voltages these things now run on.


Mike.

Hey that is some great intel Mr MikeWalsh. So let me ask you this, I went into my BIOS and had to disable secure boot and also I had to disable Bitlocker and faststart in order to install linux mint cinnamon 22 on my device and run it as a dual/multi boot device. All was a success. Could one of those features that I had to disable be causing my issues with the "write protection" alert that I keep getting every time I attempt to reformat the usb??

 

[MikeRocor]

I'm with you on that. I have a tray full and none have manual write lock on them, only my SD cards,

I have had problems when working on Windows machines, they don't seem to like pen-rives that have been used with Linux, although they have been re-formatted fats [using Linux] re-formatting using windows usually clears the problem,

I have an ext2 driver on my Win 7 box so it's not always asking if I want to format my USB sticks - though I haven't put that to the test since I started using ext4 on them. I'm pretty sure the ext2 driver will still recognize an ext4 partition.

My usb sticks (like you, I have a tray full of them) are mostly Sandisk, PNY or Lexar and I rarely have trouble with any of them. Of course none of them ever give me any trouble a second time - storage media is -nothing- if not reliable so the first error gets them discarded.

 

[davinci74]

I have an ext2 driver on my Win 7 box so it's not always asking if I want to format my USB sticks - though I haven't put that to the test since I started using ext4 on them. I'm pretty sure the ext2 driver will still recognize an ext4 partition.

My usb sticks (like you, I have a tray full of them) are mostly Sandisk, PNY or Lexar and I rarely have trouble with any of them. Of course none of them ever give me any trouble a second time - storage media is -nothing- if not reliable so the first error gets them discarded.

Yeah so I couldn't figure out why I kept getting that notification "write protected" every time that I attempted to reformat the usb. So to solve the problem, I went got a Hottips! usbA &C and put Ubunto on there in about 15 mins. So easy fix

 

[aeiou]

yeah so i was trying on my windows11 OS to download Ubuntu and every time I try to format to FAT32, it say write protected

Windows doesn't read the Linux file system, can't deal with, can't read the partition of a burned ISO onto a USB Flash drive. Windows thinks it is Write Protected, but it isn't. If you insert that same USB Flash Drive into a working Linux system, you'll have no problem reformatting it.

 

[aeiou]

You may find a tiny 'switch'....usually along the edge of the stick....look carefully.

They make them that way so that a usb with important info on it won't be picked up and formatted accidentally

fwiw, SanDisk are usually reasonable quality

Once you use a Windows computer/Laptop to burn a Linux ISO onto a USB Flash Drive, Windows then cannot read that Linux File System-Partition. Windows thinks it is Write Protected, but it isn't. Take that same ISO burned USB Flash Drive, insert it into a working Linux system, Linux will have no problem reading and or reformatting that USB Flash Drive.

 

[aeiou]

Yeah so I couldn't figure out why I kept getting that notification "write protected" every time that I attempted to reformat the usb. So to solve the problem, I went got a Hottips! usbA &C and put Ubunto on there in about 15 mins. So easy fix

Simply insert that USB Flash Drive into a working Linux system, and use the Disks Utility to reformat said USB Flash Drive. Windows doesn't recognize the file system, the Linux partition on the USB Flash Drive, so Windows assumes it is Write Protected.