[Nottingham] Dead USB Memory stick?

[Martin]

OK...

So it looks like that usb memory stick has gone "read-only". All and any
write to it fails. Very annoying if it's only one block that has gone
dead...

:-(

Out of interest, anyone know for:

> First some questions, especially for anyone that has a new and *unused*
> usb memory stick to try:
> 
> On a "blank" unused usb memory stick, which way are the bits set for the
> blank flash? All '1's or all '0's?
> 
> Are there any utilities to let you completely (low level) erase the
> memory stick so that it is back to its unfragmented erased state as when
> first manufactured?
> 
> 
> I've an 8GB memory stick that survived a mere 3 months being used as a
> linux system root (including /var), alongside a second memory stick that
> is still ok. I used them as a RAID1 mirror pair with 128kByte chunks
> set. I also used ext4 with the options "noatime,commit=60,nouser_xattr".
> 
> I can read from the entire memory stick without problem. Trying to write
> to it fails after about 1Gbyte from the start.
> 
> So... Have I got a dodgy 1GByte memory stick out of the original 8GBytes?
> 
> (And yes it is a real 8GBytes and not a resized fake.)
> 
> Or can I try some clever reset/reformat trick on it?

Cheers,
Martin


-- 
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Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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