0007 - HipStreet 4gb usb-drive's death

0007 - HipStreet 4gb usb-drive's death
One day I was doing work at a friend's Win.XP computer. I saved my files to my SanDisk Cruzer USB drive and removed the drive. Next, I plugged in my HipStreet 4GB USB drive and saved the same files to it. But before completion, Windows reported an error. I tried to repeat the procedure. This time, Windows indicates that the USB drive is write-protected (read only), and that I should remedy this.
The drive would not let me add or erase files. (Caution! The following discusses methods and software which will destroy data on the partition and/or MasterBootRecord.) This is what I tried to repair the drive (but not necessarily in this order):

On Windows7:
[* diskpart.exe. - I didnot try this because as I looked at it, I realized the instructions and dos commands???, were beyond my IQ]
* reformat. - Failure, because media is seen as read-only.
* disk management/ storage/. - Failure, no reformat or repartition functions available as the media is seen as read-only
* hp usb formatting tool. - Failure, because media is seen as read-only.
* kd_win.exe (v. 4.1) - I couldn't get this version of Killdisk to work on Win.7.
* KILLDISK_WIN.EXE (v. 5,230). - Partial success. although it took a long time (8hours+), it appears to have wiped the drive partition and the mbr. (If I can't fix the drive, at least then, I can wipe the data for confidentiality reasons.). These are excerpts from the log:

>2011-04-26 15:07:40 Start Session
>2011-04-26 15:07:44 Refreshed
>2011-04-26 15:08:08 Start Scanning Drive [HIPSTREET (E:)]
>2011-04-26 15:08:09 Scanning Drive Completed [HIPSTREET (E:)]
>----------------------------------------Erase Session Begin---------------------------------------
>2011-04-26 15:09:18 Active@ KILLDISK for Windows Build 5.2.3 started
> Target: Generic Flash Disk 3.964 GB
> Located on: Generic Flash Disk (Serial number: )
> Erase method: One Pass Zeros (1 pass) Passes: 1
>Bad (unwritable) sectors detected from 0 to 158696 on Removable Disk 1.
>Error (19) reading sector 0 on Removable Disk 1.
>User stopped erasing at 1 % (pass: 1)
>2011-04-26 15:24:27 Total number of erased device(s): 0, partition(s): 0
>-----------------------------------------Erase Session End----------------------------------------
>2011-04-26 15:24:30 Refreshed
>2011-04-26 15:24:38 Stop Session
>2011-04-26 15:25:58 Start Session
>2011-04-26 15:26:01 Refreshed
>2011-04-26 15:26:55 Refreshed
>2011-04-26 15:26:58 Start Scanning Drive [HIPSTREET (E:)]
>2011-04-26 15:26:59 Scanning Drive Completed [HIPSTREET (E:)]
>----------------------------------------Erase Session

>Begin---------------------------------------
>2011-04-26 15:27:50 Active@ KILLDISK for Windows Build 5.2.3 started
> Target: Generic Flash Disk 3.964 GB
> Located on: Generic Flash Disk (Serial number: )
> Erase method: One Pass Zeros (1 pass) Passes: 1
>Bad (unwritable) sectors detected from 0 to 8312831 on Removable Disk 1.
>Error (19) reading sector 0 on Removable Disk 1.
>Time taken: 08:35:29
>2011-04-27 00:03:18 Total number of erased device(s): 1, partition(s): 0
>-----------------------------------------Erase Session End----------------------------------------
>2011-04-27 00:03:22 Refreshed


On Windows98:
* reformat. - Failure, because media is seen as read-only.
* KILLDISK_WIN.EXE (v. 5,230). - N/A as this version does not work for Windows98
* kd_win.exe (v. 4.1) - This version of Killdisk appeared not to do anything, but on hindsight, I think it does work, (and does the same job as Killdisk_win.exe v 5.23). It just appears frozen because the process is (normally?) slow.
* Ranish Partition Manager (v. 2.44) (ie. part244.exe). - This program allows you to add a standard (generic?) MBR (Master Boot Record?) to your usb drive! It also lets you repartition the drive.
* Swiss Knife Partition Manager 3.09. - This doesn't seem to work for external usb drives. Either it may be meant only for fixed drives or it fails in this circumstance because the usb drive in question is seen as read-only.
[* FDISK - I didnot try this because I don't understand dos, and because it appeared to be a situation where I would easily destroy the fixed HardDrive instead of the external USB drive.]


Conclusion
----------
USB drives are not invulnerable to data loss or physical failure. I don't know much about the HipStreet brand, but it didn't provide a reasonable usage-time before it failed. I assumed it was the same quality as other USB drives because the price was similar. Although damage to some of the drive's partition could be repaired by standard Windows utilities, damage to the lower sectors of the drive (0? 00?) which contains the MBR, will render the drive inoperable.
If you can easily afford to replace a drive, then you should consider physically destroy the corrupt usb-drive, (i.e., with a hammer or flame or other method). This will certainly save you time.