[Discuss] Utility to test USB Pendrive?

[Patrick]

On Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:58:36 -0700
Murray Strome wrote:

> I just bought a new 8G USB pendrive.  I tried to copy everything from my old one (with Kubuntu 7.10) to the new drive using dd.  When I tried booting from the new one, it did not work properly. I then tried to install Kubuntu 8.04 KDE-4 AMD64 on it (as persistent), and this did not work, but that could well be that I simply goofed in the long process of installing it. It started to boot, but dropped down to some kind of Debian shell. I cannot remember exactly what.
> 
> Can anyone suggest a (free) utility to test external USB flash drives (preferably LINUX)?  I am suspect the drive is faulty, but cannot be certain.

You could try the dd approach again, then;
    dd if=/dev/sda | md5sum
    dd if=/dev/sdb | md5sum
and see if they match.

Are you sure both pen-drives are *exactly* the same size?  To the
byte?  That test will only work if they are, but dd should say
something about records in / records out too.

> 
> Thanks for any suggestions. I couldn't find anything that seemed appropriate using Google.
> 
> Murray

Patrick.

PS: http://xkcd.com/394/

-- 
Authors are easy to get on with -- if you're fond of children.
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