File Locked on Flash Drive

Question

I'm completely frustrated. I'm an owner of a OCZ 8GB Rally2 which I've used flawlessly for about 4 months now, and all of a sudden this week I begin getting errors telling me that I can't delete a file due to "make sure the disk is not write-protected, full or and the file is not in-use" dialog. Here's what I've tried:

• Deleting the file using FileASSASSIN (it's worked on everything else but files on this darn flash drive)
• Formatting the flash drive and then restoring the backed up information (I format to NTFS, FYI)

Any suggestions on what to do?

Answer 1

Use Unlocker:

If that doesn't work, there are alternatives that will remove the file upon reboot, before Windows has a chance to lock them. 2 such programs are:

Boot Deleter:

MoveOnBoot:

Answer 2

When I get this error message, I use Process Explorer's handle-search feature to find which application is holding which resource in the system, so maybe this can help you too.