Hello all:
I want to check if my USB thumb-drive is 'dead' or 'alive'.
Here is a command I know nothing about:
# badblocks -w -s -o error.log /dev/sdX
Is this test destructive, on non-destructive?
If the thumb-drive is dead, it's "no biggie".
(Later) - just booted Toshiba (see below) from another thumb. Fossa-64.
Cobaka
(- extra info -)
I'm in the process of installing Puppy Linux to a Toshiba L750 laptop.
A few weeks ago I installed several Puppies on a single thumb-drive. (Never did that before).
Finished the installation. Booted a Puppy from each kennel in turn - then shut down.
From memory - did not make a single save file on this thumb-drive.
Succesfully booted at least one Puppy on another PC using this thumb-drive.
Now - using this thumb-drive + Toshiba: cannot boot any Puppy fr. this drive.
That's the past. Now I turn to today.
Am in the process of installing one Puppy into a Toshiba L750 laptop. (as I wrote above).
Friend said: "Can I have dual-boot?" Never done that before. I said: Sure! Easy-Peasy.
Have successfully booted this Toshiba into Friendly Puppy and Windows.
Windows from HDD. Puppy from a known bootable thumb-drive.
Swapped Friendly-Puppy thumb-drive with a second thumb-drive - the one mentioned above.
It's colour: silver/chrome. Now - when I boot the Toshiba - any Puppy: get warning. Kernel Panic. Not syncing. kill init! OR root login in TTY1, then FossaPup distro specs. I/O error (and so on)
Oh? I-O error. I read about that. It's worse than covid. ex-President Trump never got an I-O error!
When I put the thumb-drive in my working desk-top (I'm typing on it now) the partitions on the silver drive are mounted, visible and (using ROX) I can 'see' files and file parameters. When I click on a text file it opens.
I don't care if the thumb-drive is 'dead' - I just want to check it before I trash it.
I spent a lot of time installing Puppies onto this thumb-drive.
Other info: Method used to install many puppies on the silver thumb-drive: Manual - drag & drop, using ROX. Described on this forum by MikeSLR. Bootloader: Grub4Dos. Installation Puppy: uPupBB64.
(That's all folks!)