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BADBLOCKS

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
WARNING
AUTHOR
BUGS
AVAILABILITY
SEE ALSO

NAME

badblocks ? search a device for bad blocks

SYNOPSIS

badblocks [ ?b block-size ] [ ?o output_file ] [ ?s ] [ ?v ] [ ?w ] device blocks-count[start-block]

DESCRIPTION

badblocks is used to search for bad blocks on a device (usually a disk partition). device is the special file corresponding to the device (e.g /dev/hdc1). blocks-count is the number of blocks on the device.

OPTIONS

?b block-size

Specify the size of blocks in bytes.

?o output_file

Write the list of bad blocks to the specified file. Without this option, badblocks displays the list on its standard output. The format of this file is suitable for use by the ?l option in e2fsck(8) or mke2fs(8).

?s

Show the progress of the scan by writing out the block numbers as they are checked.

?v

Verbose mode.

?w

Use write-mode test. With this option, badblocks scans for bad blocks by writing some patterns (0xaa, 0x55, 0xff, 0x00) on every block of the device, reading every block and comparing the contents.

WARNING

Never use the ?w option on an device containing an existing file system. This option erases data!

AUTHOR

badblocks was written by Remy Card <card@masi.ibp.fr>, the developer and maintainer of the ext2 fs.

BUGS

I had no chance to make real tests of this program since I use IDE drives, which remap bad blocks. I only made some tests on floppies.

AVAILABILITY

badblocks is part of the e2fsprogs package and is available for anonymous ftp from tsx-11.mit.edu in /pub/linux/packages/ext2fs.

SEE ALSO

e2fsck(8), mke2fs(8)


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