Hardware microSD is write protected?

[Sicklyboy]

So I am a bit confused... here I am, a huge techie, and my best bud comes to me with a 16gb Samsung class 2 microSD card that no longer works in his phone.

I plug it in to my bro's laptop, can read the card, but can not copy files from it (using a shit microSD adapter which I think is broken).

Tonight, I plug it into my pc with my good adapter, I can copy files from it, but neither windows nor the panasonic SD formatter can format it. They both report that the card is write protected.

Now when I say microSD adapter, I mean USB microSD card reader, not microSD to SD adapter. The reader has no lock switch, and the card obviously does not either.

So, explain to me... how the hell does this card get locked, and how the hell do I unlock it???

 

[Originality]

Have you checked the device properties for a software lock (making it read only)?

 

[Sicklyboy]

Under Windows 7, I see nothing about any kind of software lock under the properties dialog.

This thing came from a Samsung phone, one of the ones with the big touch screen and Android OS. I tried to format it in my Samsung Reality SCH-U820 (runs BREW OS) but no luck on that either... just says "Format failed"