Defunct USB mp3 player

[foozy]

So a friend gave me his old mp3 player, it appears to simply be a flash drive that has media buttons on it. Don't know the brand or anything like that.

It plugs into USB, but it stopped working. When you plug it in, it says it isn't formatted. If you try to format, it says its write protected. Quit the format, and it says it cannot be formatted.

Any ideas? It has the same problem regardless of what computer its plugged into, and it stopped working on its original computer without any kind of software or hardware change.

 

[Ididmyc600]

isnt there a button somewhere called "lock" or "hold".

As far as it goes,. I have an old 256MB MP3 player that I use as a flash drive, never failed me yet.

Regards

 

[foozy]

Well, it was on lock, and i switched it to unlock but the problem persists.

Instead of refusing to format, it just says "windows cannot complete the format" and launches the new hardware wizard, after which it says "this drive cannot be formatted".

 

[Ididmyc600]

Sounds like its screwed then...

Regards