Bootable drive for El Capitan Won't Erase!

[Techno Pirate]

So I was making a bootable drive for El Capitan on my 16g usb flashdrive when I got an error msg in terminal telling me that it failed. It was weird because the usb was ejected by the OS. When I removed the usb and put it back it showed up as a bootable drive (probably one that won't work given the error msg I got), however it wouldn't let me erase it in disk utility OR TERMINAL. Literally nothing works. I tried every single terminal command I could find on the internet for forcefully erasing a drive but I always get error messages or that the drive cannot be unmounted.

Any help pls I really don't want to trash my usb

 

[Weaselboy]

Attach the drive then run the following two commands in Terminal one after the other and tell us the output of each.

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

 

[JohnDS]

Probably the flash drive is dead. They don't last forever. You can get a new 16Gb USB3 flash drive for about $10. What is your time worth? Best buy a new flash drive.

 

[Techno Pirate]

Probably the flash drive is dead. They don't last forever. You can get a new 16Gb USB3 flash drive for about $10. What is your time worth? Best buy a new flash drive.

It's a brand new drive. And is it dead if my computer can see it still?

 

[JohnDS]

Is there by any chance a physical read-only slide switch on the drive?

 

[Techno Pirate]

Attach the drive then run the following two commands in Terminal one after the other and tell us the output of each.

diskutil list

diskutil cs list

Alexanders-MBP:~ Luck$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 499.2 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

/dev/disk1

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *15.5 GB disk1

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1

2: Apple_HFS Install OS X El Capitan 15.2 GB disk1s2


Alexanders-MBP:~ Luck$ diskutil cs list

No CoreStorage logical volume groups found
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Is there by any chance a physical read-only slide switch on the drive?

nope

 

[JohnDS]

When you tried to erase using Disk Utility, were you clicked on the line for the partition ("Install OSX El Capitan") or on the line above it which shows the name of the flash drive manufacturer? If the former, try erasing while clicked on the flash drive manufacturer's name.

 

[Techno Pirate]

When you tried to erase using Disk Utility, were you clicked on the line for the partition ("Install OSX El Capitan") or on the line above it which shows the name of the flash drive manufacturer? If the former, try erasing while clicked on the flash drive manufacturer's name.

I've tried both. It's greyed out in both cases.

 

[JohnDS]

This link suggests it may be a problem with some SanDisk drives: http://superuser.com/questions/770987/read-only-usb-drive-cant-be-erased-re-set