I'd plug it back into the buddy's computer and poke around looking to see if there was special software, or maybe windows has an option to turn on something inside it.

Check your USB drive or SD card for a lock switch, and ensure it's set to write. Clear the read-only box in a file's properties to remove write protection from individual files. Use the diskpart ...

If you are unable to edit or save files on your USB drive, SD card, or hard drive, it is likely that your device is locked in read-only mode. This article will introduce you to a few ways that you can ...

Enabling write protection on a Universal Serial Bus drive prevents users from adding, copying or deleting data from the device. If you've inserted a USB drive into your Microsoft Windows 7 computer ...