[willed]

Hello, I've been given a flash memorystick (512MB), the sort that plugs into a USB port. It won't let me erase what's on there though, or write to it... I thought I'd solve this by erasing it in disk utility, but I go to the 'erase' tab and the options are greyed-out... Any ideas on how to wipe/reformat this thing?

Cheers,

Will

[Big Mac]

Sounds defective. Can you see if it works in a different computer?

[ghostdawg]

If it's formatted with NTFS filesystem, OS X can't write to it by default. You would need to get 'ntfs-3g' or another 3rd party driver for write access.

[TETENAL]

To format the USB keychain memory stick in Disk Utility select the stick itself in the list on the left side. Don't select the volume (under the stick and slightly offset to the right). If you format in in MS-DOS format you can also use it on Windows PCs.

[mduell]

Is the hardware write-protect switch on? Most USB keys have them and on some it's pretty easy to bump them on.