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I have a bunch of Kingston Data Traveler USB sticks ranging in size from 16GB to 64 GB. These have a "read only" partition and a data partition, and access to the data partition is only through software in the "read only" partition (Diskpart shows it as a CDROM), where it gets encrypted with a password you supply. In my last job I needed the extra security but I don't anymore so I want to use these as normal USB sticks. But it won't let me format the "read only" partition.

If I just try formatting it from the command line or Windows File Explorer it does nothing - not even an error message. How do I turn these things into normal, non-encrypted USB sticks?

Someone posted a question like this here:
How to clear current “read-only” state on a USB flash drive I setup with Rufus?

... but the suggested fix involved the use of a dodgy-looking utility.

...also on other questions like this some people suggested formatting it on a Linux system but I don't have access to a Linux system.

user316117
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  • What do you have access to? "Dodgy-looking" utilities you don't want. You do not want to use Live-CD, USB-flash, USB-HDD (Linux, etc.), or do not have the opportunity? – Alex_Krug Feb 07 '21 at 05:12
  • _ Live-CD, USB-flash, USB-HDD_ I've never heard of any of those and in the many discussions of the web about how to turn Kingston DTL's into normal USB sticks,I've never seen them mentioned. As far as Linux goes, it would seem to be overkill to install, run, and learn a whole new operating system to solve a problem like this, especially without 100% certainty it would work. The cost of replacing these USB sticks with conventional ones would be about $20, so I can't justify any great time or effort. If it can't be done with the tools at hand on a Windows 10 PC, they go in the trash. – user316117 Feb 07 '21 at 06:49
  • Sounds like you used special software to create these encrypted volumes in the first place. Can you not use that same software to remove the partitions? – At0micMutex Feb 07 '21 at 06:51
  • ... keep in mind that a solution might not exist. Kingston might have something in the hardware that prevents the partition containing the .exe from being touched. – user316117 Feb 07 '21 at 06:52
  • @At0mic What gives you that idea? This is Kingston's standard off the shelf encrypted thumb drive. What part of my introduction was unclear? – user316117 Feb 07 '21 at 06:56
  • built-in tools Windows 10 will not work. you do not want to study and apply specialized programs (to determine the controller and memory model and select the appropriate utilities). to the trash! – Alex_Krug Feb 07 '21 at 10:46
  • The Linux approach may not even work: look at the comments for this question about what sounds like a similar device to mine: link – user316117 Feb 07 '21 at 17:38
  • @user316117 Your post in general is confusing. The intro makes it sound like it's an encrypted partition where you give it a password to unlock it. In this case, the software where you enter your pw would be the place to look at removing the encryption. (Where you say needed the extra security for a job). Then your comments make it sound like a "write-once" company provided drive (where you say it has an exe, which makes it sound like your job gave you sw to run from a read only drive). Also, I have no idea what "Kingston's off the shelf encryption is" I'm just a regular user trying to help. – At0micMutex Feb 07 '21 at 18:43
  • The Kingston device comes stock with two partitions. One is a CDROM partition with the executable which controls access to the other partition with the encrypted data. It asks for the password and only when supplied does the second partition become accessible as a conventional file system with files and free space. Without the password the second partition reports to Windows, and to Diskpart, as 0 bytes used, 0 bytes free space, unknown file system. This is a common way of providing secure USB sticks and there are many such products on the market. – user316117 Feb 07 '21 at 18:59

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