[Gllug] Rescuing a memory stick

[Richard Jones]

My brother in law has a 512 MB Sony memory stick on which he has all
his photos stored for the last N years.  [I think you can probably see
where this is going ...]  I suggested he stick it into a card reader
in his Mac and perhaps take a copy of all those photographs.
Unfortunately that action appears to have (somehow?) corrupted the
card.  Since it was my suggestion, this has now turned into My
Problem.

So I've got the card, and a card reader, and my Linux box, but I
cannot find any way to just read out the sectors from the card into a
local file.  (I can reconstruct FAT and JPEGs by hand if necessary,
but not if I can't even get at the raw sectors).

When I put the card in I see /dev/sdb appearing as a single 512 byte
sector.  That sector is obviously corrupt (see the errors below), but
how can I get USB storage to see the rest of the disk, or at least let
me read it?

'dd' doesn't work - it just fails on the faulty sector and thinks the
device is 512 bytes long.

Rich.

[ 1097.645451] usb 3-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 5
[ 1097.842332] Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
[ 1097.842885] scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[ 1097.843186] usb-storage: device found at 5
[ 1097.843189] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
[ 1097.843384] usbcore: registered new driver usb-storage
[ 1097.843476] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[ 1102.843814]   Vendor:           Model: USB Card Reader   Rev: 1.06
[ 1102.843823]   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision:
00
[ 1103.549312] SCSI device sdb: 1 512-byte hdwr sectors (0 MB)
[ 1103.552308] sdb: Write Protect is on
[ 1103.552311] sdb: Mode Sense: 43 00 80 00
[ 1103.552313] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1103.564300] SCSI device sdb: 1 512-byte hdwr sectors (0 MB)
[ 1103.567297] sdb: Write Protect is on
[ 1103.567300] sdb: Mode Sense: 43 00 80 00
[ 1103.567302] sdb: assuming drive cache: write through
[ 1103.567305]  sdb:<6>sd 4:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x8000002
[ 1103.602279] sdb: Current: sense key: Medium Error
[ 1103.602282]     Additional sense: Unrecovered read error
[ 1103.602286] Info fld=0x0
[ 1103.602288] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
[ 1103.602291] printk: 17 messages suppressed.
[ 1103.602293] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
[ 1103.632258] sd 4:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x8000002
[ 1103.632261] sdb: Current: sense key: Medium Error
[ 1103.632263]     Additional sense: Unrecovered read error
[ 1103.632267] Info fld=0x0
[ 1103.632268] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
[ 1103.632271] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0
[ 1103.632278]  unable to read partition table
[ 1103.632307] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sdb
[ 1103.632349] sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
[ 1103.635273]   Vendor:           Model: USB Card Reader   Rev: 1.06
[ 1103.635283]   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision:
00
[ 1103.650773] sd 4:0:0:1: Attached scsi removable disk sdc
[ 1103.650812] sd 4:0:0:1: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 1103.653745]   Vendor:           Model: USB Card Reader   Rev: 1.06
[ 1103.653754]   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision:
00
[ 1103.668725] sd 4:0:0:2: Attached scsi removable disk sdd
[ 1103.668769] sd 4:0:0:2: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[ 1103.669737] usb-storage: device scan complete
[ 1103.814648] sd 4:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x8000002
[ 1103.814653] sdb: Current: sense key: Medium Error
[ 1103.814655]     Additional sense: Unrecovered read error
[ 1103.814660] Info fld=0x0
[ 1103.814662] end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 0
[ 1103.814665] Buffer I/O error on device sdb, logical block 0

-- 
Richard Jones, CTO Merjis Ltd.
Merjis - web marketing and technology - http://merjis.com
Team Notepad - intranets and extranets for business - http://team-notepad.com
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