AKICOLJ - USB memory sticks

[gurthaew]

My 4Gb memory stick seems to be suffering from corrupted files. There's nothing important on there, so I tried to format it; that seemed to be succesful. When I tried copying more stuff too it, I got an error message saying there were corrupted files again.

Does anyone know of a downloadable disk checking utility I could give it a quick once-over with? I will replace it PDQ as it's the one I use to move work related stuff around, but I'm curious to know what it wrong with it.

Comments

[crazyscot.livejournal.com]

How old is it, how much use has it seen? NAND flash - almost certainly what's in the stick - gradually wears out over time. If the driver is sane, bad regions are identified and put out of use. However if it's an unbranded stick then it may not do this or, worse, may conceivably have a crap flash translation layer, which would mean you're out of luck.

I'd go for a bad blocks scan if I were you, that should tickle all the sectors, identify bad ones and put them beyond use. You don't need to download anything to do that: http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/08/fix-format-usb-flash-drives/ .

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

Thanks. It's an Attache Pro 4Gb stick. It's seen lots of use over the 3 or 4 years I've had it. I tried the scan for errors check but it didn't show any problems. I copied several megabytes to it just now without any problems at all.

It may be due to the security system at Siemens - I can't even format it there. They have a maximum "local" storage checker that won't allow too much personal data storage on a computer. I will replace it out of paranoia but I'll hang onto it for a while to see if it really is playing up.

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

Because Windoze disk checker claimed there were no errors, I downloaded a test program from

http://sourceforge.net/projects/usbmst/files/USB%20Sticker%20Tester%20v0.1/version%200.1/

and that claimed that just about everything in Mask=0xaa was faulty.

At least Currys have 8Gb sticks on special offer.

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

It would be worth looking at the speed spec of Corsair GT memory keys, then comparing others with that spec. Most or all will be slower to write, but ones on offer are sometimes the very slow ones. Then there will be no such thing as making a quick backup.

[gurthaew.livejournal.com]

I have bought a Scandisk Cruzer Blade 8Gb because it was on special offer at Currys. It's not one of my backup drives, it's just the general purpose one I carry around with me.