Need to wipe a writelocked micro SD card.

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LGTV

LGTV

kiwifarms.net
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Apr 16, 2023
I need to wipe 2 Samsung micro SD cards that are write locked due to hardware failure without causing physical damage to the card so I can send it to samsung for an RMA. If I cause physical damage to the card my RMA will be denied.

Everything on it is backed up, but I don't want Samsung accessing my personal pictures that on it, and I cannot have them accessing the pictures related to my former place of employment.

So far I've tried:
  1. Quick Format Via Win10 - failed
  2. Normal Format Via Win10 - failed
  3. Diskpart to clear the read only attribute via "attrib disk clear Readonly"
  4. Format via Android 12 - says it was successful except the data is still present on the card.
It's not the little switch on the Micro to Full size SD adapter. Because I've tried it with the switch in both positions. Almost every answer I've found on google is "did you try the little switch on the adapter"
 
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LGTV said:
It's not the little switch on the Micro to Full size SD adapter. Because I've tried it with the switch in both positions. Almost every answer I've found on google is "did you try the little switch on the adapter"
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Have you tried the cmd prompt on your Windows PC with the switch in either direction?

I found this source that uses another software to install at your own discretion.
 
Peristaltic Pump said:
What’s on the card?
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Pictures of me and my family, pictures of my previous job, and the rest is high res music and mkv bluray rips. I just don't want pictures of me out there beyond my control. Also my previous job had me sign a thing where any pictures we took while there had to be deleted whenever we quit. I didn't realize I still had them on this card.
 
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LGTV said:
Pictures of me and my family, pictures of my previous job, and the rest is high res music and mkv bluray rips. I just don't want pictures of me out there beyond my control. Also my previous job had me sign a thing where any pictures we took while there had to be deleted whenever we quit. I didn't realize I still had them on this card.
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Why would anyone care to save pictures of you off your sd card?
 
I've never had an adapter with the 'little switch' but on my full size SD cards they fail all the fucking time, so try another one? (One of the nice parts about using CFe in my cameras now: they don't have that stupid thing)

If it's well and truly write locked you're going to have to choose between money and people looking at your pictures.
 
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Open an elevated command prompt and try 'diskpart clean' on the drive. If that doesn't work then you're SOL. The reason you want to RMA is the same reason you can't wipe the SD, so I dunno how it could be fixed without magically also removing your need to RMA.
 
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I'm sorry but this is a pretty dumb thread. If it's writelocked you obviously aren't going to be able to erase anything as that requires writing to the card. You can either eat the cost, which was what like $20, and destroy it or RMA it and be paranoid about anyone seeing whatever you had stored on there. Those are your options.
 
Try Rufus and format the card as a non bootable device. Worked for me when a thumb drive was "lost" due to a format error.

You can also download the official SD format tool from the SD association. Can't guarantee that any of these options will work but they are worth a shot

Also download Ballena etcher and write any Linux iso into the SD and when its finished, format the SD with Rufus or the SD tool. A little extreme but also wort trying to check if by flashing it the lock is removed
 
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1. diskpart (in an elevated command prompt)
2. list disk
3. select disc - followed by the number of the disk representing the SD card
4. attributes disk clear readonly
5. clean

Alternatively, maybe wave some really strong magnets across them?
 
Mikoyan said:
I've never had an adapter with the 'little switch' but on my full size SD cards they fail all the fucking time, so try another one? (One of the nice parts about using CFe in my cameras now: they don't have that stupid thing)

If it's well and truly write locked you're going to have to choose between money and people looking at your pictures.
Click to expand...
It's dead dead so I guess I'll just send it in and hope nothing happens.
Just A Butt said:
What was your previous job?
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Saying what exactly will probably dox my location, all I say is Samsung is a direct competitor to my previous employer.
Cougar Pump said:
Open an elevated command prompt and try 'diskpart clean' on the drive. If that doesn't work then you're SOL. The reason you want to RMA is the same reason you can't wipe the SD, so I dunno how it could be fixed without magically also removing your need to RMA.
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Elevated CMD as in admin? didn't work
Karma Khan said:
I'm sorry but this is a pretty dumb thread. If it's writelocked you obviously aren't going to be able to erase anything as that requires writing to the card. You can either eat the cost, which was what like $20, and destroy it or RMA it and be paranoid about anyone seeing whatever you had stored on there. Those are your options.
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it's gonna be about $95 total to replace both of them.
The Last Stand said:
If it's not working with the switch, I heard it means that the card is dead. That doesn't sound right as OP was able to extract/back up the data from it.
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The SD Card association requires every card to go into read only mode if the card runs out of usable sectors. That's what I'm facing right now.
 
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The Connected Nose said:
1. diskpart (in an elevated command prompt)
2. list disk
3. select disc - followed by the number of the disk representing the SD card
4. attributes disk clear readonly
5. clean

Alternatively, maybe wave some really strong magnets across them?
Click to expand...
DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.
See the System Event Log for more information.

I do have some Neodymium magnets I could try. Just gotta find them.
 
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LGTV said:
Saying what exactly will probably dox my location, all I say is Samsung is a direct competitor to my previous employer.
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what sort of things were you taking pictures of at work
 
I sounded like an asshole in my prior post so in an actual attempt to be helpful I'll say that static electricity can damage a SD card so it's not functional at all without leaving any sign of intentional damage.
 
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