Having purchased a Transcend V15 16GB USB stick for a router-on-a-stick project, I was horrified to find out that it came preinstalled with some proprietary Antivirus software which only works under Windows, to make matters worse, the USB stick reports itself as read-only when plugged in under OS X or Linux, you can’t wipe it or even use it.
The proper unofficial and unsupported method (you’ll need Windows) is to download Transcend Online Recovery Tool, disable UAC by going to the User Control Panel (Start Menu -> Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> User Account. Set the controller to “Never notify” and reboot the machine. (you can and should change it back later)
Now insert USB stick, start tool and follow the instructions, but once it prompts you for the size of your USB stick you quit the tool. The USB has now been wiped and it’s no longer read-only.
The stick still contains two partitions, but that’s easily fixed under OS X or Linux.
I’d love to hear from people who have successfully wiped the entire USB key without using Windows, and I don’t mean stomping on it 