Software for finding bad sectors on a usb drive

shanghaiguy · 08-06-2010, 03:30 PM

Hi, I can't seem to find any programs or applications for linux that will find bad sectors of a usb drive. I have seen plenty for Windows, but I was wondering if there are any for linux. Thanks in advance!

Fred Caro · 08-06-2010, 06:21 PM

I think you might be referring to something similar to a surface scan done by scandisk on win 98.'Ultimate boot disk cd' might help with that but you might want to try the 'badblocks' in info or man, or even howto on line.

Fred.

frankbell · 08-06-2010, 09:13 PM

Have you looked into fsck?

Ahmed · 08-07-2010, 11:57 AM

Make sure to unmount your USB drive (!) before running fsck over it. You can unmount using your Desktop environment, or with the "umount" command.

-A

thorkelljarl · 08-07-2010, 12:39 PM

Hardware at a more basic level...

If your system supports Smart you can activate and use it to check a USB HDD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

You may also use a command such as "lshw" to identify your HDD and then google for the manufacturers HDD utility. There is SeaTools for Seagate, ESTOOL for Samsung, and probably one for your HDD too. They are usually available both as a live-cd and as a dos diskette and should be able to scan the surface of the disk for errors.

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...s/ES_Tool.html

Mr. Alex · 08-07-2010, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shanghaiguy

Hi, I can't seem to find any programs or applications for linux that will find bad sectors of a usb drive. I have seen plenty for Windows, but I was wondering if there are any for linux. Thanks in advance!

Code:

badblocks -wv [device]

But be sure to backup all your data from that drive because this command will erase flash-drive. Don't misprint to rewrite your HDD! Be careful!

Fred Caro · 08-08-2010, 05:53 AM

I'm told that running badblock commands from bash can take some time to complete. It occurs to me that many pendrives come with an encrypted partition that may be difficult to remove and interfere with reformating and bootability.

Fred.

Mr. Alex · 08-08-2010, 06:48 AM

This indeed will take some time. Maybe even a whole day. I think it depends on stick's amount of GB.

shanghaiguy · 08-09-2010, 09:52 AM

I've tried using the badblocks command on a couple of smaller flash drives that definitely have some bad blocks but for whatever reason, it keeps saying that there are none. As for the fsck command, perhaps I need to use an option, but it doesn't show how many bad blocks there are?