tumbweed_biff wrote that:
Thumb drives don't just suddenly decide to write protect themselves and if the flash memory had somehow maxed its number of writes per block you'd get an insuffient space error, not write protected.
I have to tell you tumbweed and anyone else reading this, that info you are spreading here is wrong!
A flash drive which has used up its write cycles or just gone plain old bad early (before its time) does NOT continue to work with less remaining writing area, nor does the computer give you any different error!
As many others have replied to your previous such claims on this thread, what happens is the internal firmware of the flash device simple goes into a lock mode to prevent any future damage to the existing data, is that clear enough?
So, a worn, whether because of old age or because of poor quality flash drive goes into lock mode and can no longer be written to by any computer no matter what computer or software is tried. It's as simple as that.
No special errors are detected by any OS, the drive can just simply no longer be written to, Understand now?
Thanks and I hope this helps future readers also understand this simple but apparently not well known fact also.