How to remove a damaged file

[Todd Denniston]

Anne Wilson wrote, On 04/23/2008 11:31 AM:
> On Wednesday 23 April 2008 15:58, Todd Denniston wrote:
>> Is it a SanDisk??? I ask because they have some weird junk on their sticks
>> that you need to use MS to remove and it alternately looks like a partition
>> or a second disk when you plug it in.
>>
>> DON'T delete the partitions until after removing the tool!
>>
> No, it's a DaneElec
> 
>> "Can I remove U3 technology from my USB drive?"
>> http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1450#Q13
>> or "U3 Launchpad Removal Tool"
>> http://www.sandisk.com/Retail/Default.aspx?CatID=1415
>>
>> As for just reformatting the partition that is there I would suggest three
>> things: 1) read `man mkdosfs`
>> 2) consider just doing a raw RW badblocks run against the device... 
> 
> How do you do that?

man badblocks
badblocks -v -w -s /dev/devicepartition

though, with ext3 I would almost suggest go ahead and format (using the 
read-write badblocks test in the format, see below) and then look at the count 
using
'dumpe2fs -b /dev/devicepartition'
of course, look at the man page first.

> 
>> if it 
>> comes up with a lot, you may want to just "<plonk>" the thing in the
>> circular file. (after hitting it with a hammer a few times. :)
> 
> It might come to that :-)
> 
>> 3) because you have IO problems and a big disk
>> mkdosfs -c -F 32 -v /dev/devicepartition
>>
> For this one I'd rather have an ext3 partition, if I can't recover it.
> 

then I suggest more along the lines of:
mke2fs -v -c -c -j -L AnneWilsonPendrive  /dev/devicepartition

'-c -c' -- Check the device for bad blocks before creating the file system. 
using a  slower,  read-write test instead of a fast read-only test.

> Anne
> 


-- 
Todd Denniston
Crane Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane)
Harnessing the Power of Technology for the Warfighter