My friend bought a usb flash drive, but can't seem to add or delete stuff anymore. It just says that it is "write - protected". It works for about a minute when you plug it in, but then stops and goes into the write-protected mode. Also, one time I plugged it in and went to my computer, it showed up with the removable disk icon, but when I double clicked it, it asked me which program to open it with. It had a huge list, but I picked IE. It worked long enough for me to delete a file, but then stopped letting me do stuff again. This is the error message I got. Do any of you know how to fix this?

try saving what ever you are putting on it, open up your MY COMPUTER screen and go to your flash drive stuff, then drag the file from where ever into that. I had the same problem. its annoying and more time consuming. but yeah... you cant do like 'save as' USB drive.

Does he have any sort of flash drive protection software? Some drives have a software program with them to lock it - that might be stopping it (on the flash drive itself)

I don't really know what would cause it, but taking a minute to start doing that might go along with what Kllrnohj said (load the program).

Yes, it has a 'vault' but the files aren't in it.

no, i mean an actual EXE program that you run and locks the ENTIRE drive - check and see what programs are on the drive

also try it in linux

There might also be a manual switch - some flash drives have it.