[Coco] off-topic: USB drives scam?

[Roger Taylor]

I've been looking into this for months now and am baffled by how 
there are so many of the same questions popping up on the web, yet no 
answers.  The only answers you see are from those quasi-experts who 
just keep repeating the same garbage: "reformat the stick", "use HP 
Key", etc.  I guess some people have too much free time on their 
hands to solve problems without really trying it themselves.  None of 
that works on these mysteriously locked out sticks.

The problem is that a *LOT* of USB Flash drives are randomly becoming 
Write Protected, and there seems to be no way to recover that I'm 
aware of.  I've looked and looked.

Here's just one blurbs page showing the common problem:
http://www.fixya.com/search/p454525-sandisk_1gb_cruzer_titanium_usb_flash/write_protected

I've got about 4 brands here (some were $40 or more) and all of them 
became write protected or locked out when I inserted them in my home 
DVD player that has a USB port on the front.  Now the player can't 
access the sticks, nor any Windows system I have.  They all report 
only 8MB of space and can't format using any tool.

Also, recently I've noticed a spike in the availability of USB drives 
in Wal-Mart and other dept stores.  Hmmmm.  Tons of them hitting the 
clearance racks for $5 and new ones stacked in bulk makes me wonder 
what's going on here, really.

For this reason I've given up on USB sticks until I can fix the ones 
I have.  If they can't be fixed, I'll have to put this one on my 
bamboozle list.
-- 
~ Roger Taylor