USB drive is in read only state and I can't repair it. First of all I tried erase it using dd: root@yurko-laptop:/home/yurko-laptop# ls -l /dev/disk/by-id | grep usb lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 ??? 18 23:45 usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_C173828A-0:0 -> ../../sdb lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 ??? 18 23:45 usb-Generic_Flash_Disk_C173828A-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1 root@yurko-laptop:/home/yurko-laptop# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb dd: ?????? ? «/dev/sdb»: ?? ?????????? ????????? ????? 8257537+0 ??????? ??????? 8257536+0 ??????? ???????? ??????????? 4227858432 ????? (4,2 GB), 942,633 c, 4,5 MB/c After that I wanted to create new filesystem using fdisk: root@yurko-laptop:/home/yurko-laptop# fdisk /dev/sdb You will not be able to write the partition table. WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to sectors (command 'u'). Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sdb: 4227 MB, 4227858432 bytes 4 heads, 63 sectors/track, 32768 cylinders Units = cylinders of 252 * 512 = 129024 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00000000 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 18 32768 4126596 b W95 FAT32 Command (m for help): fdisk showed that the partition still exists and I can't write the partition table. I tried to delete the existing partition: Command (m for help): d Selected partition 1 Command (m for help): w Unable to write /dev/sdb root@yurko-laptop:/home/yurko-laptop# Why am I not be able to write the partition table? Does it mean that some hardware failure occurred? And is it possible to repair the current USB drive? I've tried to use hdparm and it showed that the readonly flag is on: root@yurko-laptop:/home/yurko-laptop# hdparm /dev/sdb /dev/sdb: SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]: f0 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 26 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 multcount = 0 (off) readonly = 1 (on) readahead = 256 (on) geometry = 1016/131/62, sectors = 8257536, start = 0