Unable to write to USB (destination drive is not writable)

[PalladinRex]

For the last 36 hours I have been fighting with Fedora Media Writer to put Fedora 41 onto a USB so I can flash my laptop to a new OS. However, I have been getting this issue that insists that it cannot write the media to the USB. This comes both before and after the patch by @grulja to help us get the media writer to re-format the USB sticks after a failed attempt.
I am currently using Windows 10 (not 11) on my main PC/Gaming rig, so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.
I have used a Verbatim Store N Go 32GB USB, a Kingston DataTraveler 110 G3 128GB USB (that also still has a Windows Installer on it, it failed to overwrite that as well), and now a generic 64GB USB that we got from Amazon (third picture). I have also tested each USB by putting other files (PDFs and Word documents) onto it to test if it can be written on, and each one will accept files and open them.
I have tried using Windows' Disk Management to reformat the drives and hopefully fix the issue about partitions, but to no previous avail.
As someone TRYING to get away from the Microsoft ecosystem before even more privacy and security issues are pre-installed, I would greatly appreciate any help with this.

Thank You,
PalladinRex

[grulja]

1. Have you tried to reboot your computer?

2. Can you try https://github.com/FedoraQt/MediaWriter/releases/tag/5.1.3? I completely rewrote Windows support in the new version and this is what we had before. We had similar issues even before, I hoped these are gone with the new code, but working with disks on Windows is HARD and apparently there might be still some issues.

3. Can you also include both logs (MediaWriter-helper.txt is the most important one) that you find in your Documents folder?

[PalladinRex]

1. Have you tried to reboot your computer?

   2. Can you try https://github.com/FedoraQt/MediaWriter/releases/tag/5.1.3? I completely rewrote Windows support in the new version and this is what we had before. We had similar issues even before, I hoped these are gone with the new code, but working with disks on Windows is HARD and apparently there might be still some issues.

   3. Can you also include both logs (MediaWriter-helper.txt is the most important one) that you find in your Documents folder?

1. I have tried rebooting my computer and shutting it off for the night 2 days in a raw. Nada. No difference.

2. Just did, got this. At least its a new error code?
   

3. I think I found them. Are these what you're looking for? They are .log files, not .txt, but I think that just has more to do with the OS settings. This is ONLY from the 5.1.3 release, as I uninstalled the 5.2.2 release to prevent any overlap or misclick issues. If you want me to re-install and run the 5.2.2 version, I can do that easily enough.
   FedoraMediaWriter.log
   FedoraMediaWriter-helper.log

[grulja]

1. I have tried rebooting my computer and shutting it off for the night 2 days in a raw. Nada. No difference.
2. Just did, got this. At least its a new error code?

It's basically the same issue. I'm running out of ideas what could be wrong, especially since it doesn't work even with the previous version. Btw. I have tested Windows 10 in a VM and it worked for me.

I don't have a solution for you, at least solution making Fedora Media Writer to work. Since your goal is to get out of Windows and use Fedora, I can for now only recommend trying https://rufus.ie/. It's essentially a similar tool, you just select an ISO image to write to your USB drive. It has more robust implementation of device handling, even though lots of the stuff we do is similar, but hopefully at least Rufus will work for you.

I'm really sorry that Fedora Media Writer doesn't work for you.

[PalladinRex]

Just to annoy myself even further, an older PC Build that I had made (and currently runs my TV and media system) ran the installer perfectly, wrote to the same USB as I had tried to before with no issues, and Fedora is currently installing on my old HP Envy laptop.

Apparently the installer was either only having issues with with my PC, or with Windows 10 computers specifically.

Thank you again @grulja for all your help!

[RokeJulianLockhart]

#774 (comment)

@grulja, win64-5.1.3.exe remediates it for me!

1. 
2. 

I seriously suggest that you push an update to winget-pkgs.

However, @PalladinRex, note that it trips Microsoft.SecHealthUI's "Ransomware Protection" if active:

Consequently, ensure that swiftly permit it there if you have that functionality enabled.

Additionally, perhaps run the undermentioned: ¹

#!/usr/bin/env -S pwsh
If ($IsWindows) {
  Add-MpPreference -ControlledFolderAccessAllowedApplications "$PathOfToBeAllowedApp" # `helper.exe`
}

@grulja, this is probably worth adding to the application source.

Footnotes

1. superuser.com/revisions/1775262/1 ↩

[grulja]

@RokeJulianLockhart you will no longer have problems with drives formatted with Fedora Media Writer once you use version 5.2.0 or 5.2.2 (5.2.1 was broken). Also version 5.2.2 will most likely resolve your issue with ransomware protection.

Regarding WinGet, we have this automated in CI, but it never worked. I don't have any experience with WinGet so no idea how to fix it.

[RokeJulianLockhart]

#774 (comment)

@gruljak, do you mean that you've also fixed FMW triggering SecHealthUI's Ransomware Protection?

[grulja]

#774 (comment)

@gruljak, do you mean that you've also fixed FMW triggering SecHealthUI's Ransomware Protection?

Maybe not, I didn't study details what it is about, but we fixed #767 with migration to newer Windows in CI.

[RokeJulianLockhart]

#774 (comment)

@grulja, that's different. I'll file this separately, if it occurs again with 5.2.2+.