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[SOLVED] Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 07 Oct 2012, 20:03
by nixlower0
I found that my usb flash drive have something wrong when I tried to transfer to it a file about 1 GB, the I had an error something about "device error".
I checked my 4 GB A-Data drive with some soft like "flashnul.exe", "Flash Drive Tester v1.14" and "badblocks -wvs /dev/sdXY" (as suggested me yesterday comrade fanthom if I'm not wrong).
"flshnul" showed after filling my drive with zeros, one error and one error after "Reand and Write" test.
"Flash Drive Tester v1.14" - after 17 hours I stopped the test. At the begining it show all is OK, but after an hour it begun show badblocks.
In therminal emulator (I used CDLinux live CD), command "badblocks" (

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"badblocks -wvs /dev/sdc1"
), showed next -

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"Reading and comparing: done Pass completed, 740544 bad blocks found. (0/0/740544 errors)"
.
Is there a way to block or fix those bad blocks? Can someone help me?
Thank you in advance for all answers!

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 08 Oct 2012, 04:58
by slaxeee
I've encountered such kind of problem few times ago.
Using a new 8 Go SD to store programs and documents, i suddenly lost all my datas with mbr or fat corruptions.
I tryed to format again several times but without success. Sometimes it ran, sometimes it felt.

I was focalized on SD Card but in fact the origin was the SD adapter, a USB/SD card reader. Just take a new one and everything goes on.
SD cards include its own controller to mark bad blocks. Too much of them often announce a dead card ....

May be you should have a look with it ?

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 08 Oct 2012, 07:59
by nixlower0
slaxeee wrote:..." SD cards include its own controller to mark bad blocks. Too much of them often announce a dead card ....

May be you should have a look with it ?"
Hi! You mean I need a new one or better if I use an SD (or micro SD) with card reader/adapte instead of a regular USB flash drive?
Also now I remeber how I begun to suspect my flash drive is broken. I installed from CD (then from Windows XP) a latest Porteus. Every thing was OK, until I begun to modify "posterus.cfg" - "change=/" line. After rebooting cfg file every time was broken, it show in SciTE(scetilla based text/codding editor) -

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"NUL NUL NUL NUL" ...
. But if I haven't installed nothing and run in "fresh" mode, all were OK. Then when I checked if my flash drive has bad blocks, I found many! What can I try for repair my USB flash drive? Any idea?

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 08 Oct 2012, 11:27
by slaxeee
I didn't notice you were talking about USB key, not Flash SD, sorry.

It seems you've got bad vriting errors more than bad cluster unreferenced.
Maybe a flush memory or memory overflow results.

You can check this too :

- Format your key and try to copy/write/update/delete files ( with a text writer for instance )
- Check Filesystem and partition code FAT32 (0b / 0c )
Using 0c (FAT 32 LBA) may sometimes get corrupt files
I don't know why but i expermented this with a WD 250 Go external disk.
LBA was for "old" bios which can't adress large disk if i remember.
- Edit files like porteus.cfg with a linux compliant editor when you are under Windows.
I use Geany.

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 08 Oct 2012, 18:52
by brokenman
If it is physical block damage there is nothing you can do. I would try using the HP USB format tool

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... Tool.shtml

Some softwares report to move bad blocks to the end of a device.

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 19 Oct 2012, 19:02
by nixlower0
Hello! Sorry for answer delay! I have tried some console and terminal utilities, format and "reppair" programs, even HP USB Format Tool. Nothing good, I can't use all 3,7 GB only about 400 MB :( Well I will buy a new flash drive. I will try a cheap (about $7) 8 GB flash drive, when I'll receive it I will report how good is :)

One question more - is it good to test an USB flash drive for bad blocks (bb) before use it or that no matters?

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 19 Oct 2012, 23:05
by fanthom
is it good to test an USB flash drive for bad blocks (bb) before use it or that no matters?
new flash sticks should be ok but if you really want to test it then i would go with read-only test rather than extensive "burn-in".
here is the command:

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badblocks -vs /dev/sdXY

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 20 Oct 2012, 19:09
by nixlower0
OK, thank to all who answered me, I had learned some new terminal comands! My problem can't be solved until I buy new USB flash drive, but this thread can be marked as SOLVED.

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 21 Oct 2012, 16:39
by wread
Try formatting again, if that won't help, try a new usb, that's all. There's nothing more to it.

Cheers!

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 06 Dec 2012, 17:12
by nixlower0
Hello - forum mates! One USB flash drive (wich I ordered on China) finally is in my hands :) So, now I can begin my experiments on Porteus! ;) Thanks a lot to all people who tried to help me with that "damnation" called BB or bad blocks! This thread can be closed now.

Re: Bad bloscks (BB) on flash drive. How to fix?

Posted: 06 Dec 2012, 17:31
by Hamza
Just add "[Solved]" into your topic title :)