Disk utility doesn't let me erase flash drive

Hello Everyone!
Today I have encountered a very annoying problem. So I put my flash drive into my computer and it worked fine. But in the permissions it said I can read only. I knew what to do - I went to Disk utility. I expected to be able to just erase the drive but no. It wasn't letting me. Does anyone know how to fix this?
Thanks

Some flash drives have a failure mode in which they are irreversibly write-locked by the internal controller when it detects a write error. If the drive doesn't have a write-lock switch (most do not) and you can't erase it in Disk Utility, that's almost certainly what has happened. To be sure, test it with another computer, if possible.

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Message was edited by: PatrickB

It may depend on the type of partition table scheme you are using (see bottom of page in disk utility for that says Apple Partition Map/APM, GUID Partition table/GPT or Master Boot Record/MBR partition map).
MS-Windows can read MBR scheme only (64 bit MS-Windows supports GPT, according to MS). If you have Apple Partition Map, your disk won't be usable on Windows. I suspect you have APM partition table and hence the disk utility is not giving the option for FAT32 format, since you can't use it under MS-Windows.
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Message was edited by: jemorris55

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I will keep this sorry Halloween tale short. And, not bore you with how I got to where I am, as we'd both need drinks if I did.
Needless to say, here I am watching Disk Utility making zero progress on erasing my SSD.
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Thanks to one and all.
I know my Halloween is certainly scary enough…!

Well, thanks for the looks…
I'm calling it a night.
The DU progress bar still hasn't moved, (visually), in 4 hours since first post.
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Disk utility doesn't let me erase flash drive

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