Format NI Provided USB Drive

Updated Jun 21, 2023

I have successfully installed all of the software from my NI USB thumb drive and would now like to clear all of the data from the drive so that it can be used as a regular thumb drive. When I try to format the drive, I receive an error saying the drive is "write-protected".

USB drives provided by NI are manufactured specifically to be write-protected. There is no workaround or method for deleting the original data from the USB drive.

Additional Information

Encoding write-protection into the firmware of the drive prevents data corruption so that the software will not be damaged if it is being installed on additional computers. It is also useful to have a hard backup of the software in case a reinstall is required at a future date.

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