Unable to reformat PNY 32 Gb USB

When trying to reformat PNY 32Gb USB I get the notification that the drive is write-protected. Things I've tried:

-Checked for a physical switch on the USB (none found)
-Cleared readonly status in diskpart (current read-only state still set to Yes)
-Updated StorageDevicePolicies values in RegEdit (no change)

Any ideas?

Does the Thumb drive show in Disk Management? If so you may be able to delete the partition on it and then format it. For universal usage choose FAT32 which it probably originally came formatted as.

Berton said:

Does the Thumb drive show in Disk Management? If so you may be able to delete the partition on it and then format it. For universal usage choose FAT32 which it probably originally came formatted as.

I can view the USB in Disk Management but can't delete the partition

It's no consolation for you but I have a Linux Mint computer running and use the GPARTED function in it to take care of such chores. One could download the GPARTED LiveCD .iso file, create the disc, boot to it and try [or USB].
GParted -- Download

CWGilley said:

Surely you're logged on with an Administrator Account?

/

I am

Bree said:

See this tutorial....

Enable or Disable Disk Write Protection in Windows

...option one describes a physical switch on the USB, worth checking again in case it's not obvious.

If there's no physical switch, try the Diskpart command in Option Three.

If all fails, there's a possibility that the USB is dying. It's controller may have disable writing to protect the existing data and give you a last chance to retrieve it.

The only permanently write-protected USBs I have heard of are the ones Microsoft use for the install media found in 'off the shelf' software boxes, such as Windows 10. Where did you get this USB from?

Thank you for the info - I've tried both the diskpart option and looked for a physical switch - neither have worked