u/Healthy_Abroad_7907

I have a SanDisk 3.2 Gen 1 USB stick that used to be a Windows installer (ESD-USB). Now it’s acting weird:

• Originally 128GB
• Now only shows 32GB usable (ESD-USB FAT32)
• ~80GB shows as unallocated / missing
• I can still copy files to it
• BUT I cannot:
  • format it
  • delete partitions
  • use DiskPart clean (Access denied)
  • use PowerShell Clear-Disk (Access denied)
  • use Rufus (write error / access denied)

DiskPart output shows:

• Read-only state: No
• But still refuses all partition changes

It seems stuck in a broken partition / ESD state and Windows won’t let me rebuild it. It functioned before I put a windows installer on it and now its acting weird.

Has anyone fixed this before or is it just dead?