0

I have a fairly new usb key which has been used both in FAT32 and NTFS. Last time i was able to use it was NTFS and connected to a raspberry pi 4. I'm quite sure i unplugged it without unmounting. Now i can't format it in NTFS (gparted gives I/O error) but seems to work in FAT32 (no errors). In windows the behaviour is the same, but i noticed that FAT32 format works only if i check the fast format option.

I should point that the drive is really new and i think i used it like twenty times and i never had strange behaviours, the problem appeared only after i was experimenting backup solutions with the pi and have unplugged unsafely. I should also point that when i was trying those backup solutions i have formatted the drive like 3-4 times (always NTFS).

Is there a way to see if it is completely broken or fixable?

EDIT: When the drive is formatted as FAT32 i can copy small files and everything works, but when i try to copy a 100-200 mb file it fails giving the I/O error on Linux. The same exact behaviour happens on Windows and Linux. The large file is shown as if it was copied but it is corrupted, other small files remain in the drive.

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    Test: Format to FAT. Copy a file to it. Eject [properly] & then re-insert. Is the file still there?
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Oct 9, 2021 at 11:13
  • 1
    I formatted on windows (FAT32) and if i copy small files (like pdfs) all works (both windows and linux). If i try to copy a "large" file, like 100-200 mb, it gives the error (on linux it is referred as I/O error)
    – alenada99
    Commented Oct 9, 2021 at 11:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

If it reports I/O errors, consider it broken. As in, physically.

Specifically, some sectors are no longer usable (maybe so many that the USB stick no longer has physical storage to remap them to, maybe it doesn't do remapping at all?).

Even though the FAT32 formatting process happens to not use those places for filesystem metadata, that's not an indication that FAT32 will work: it just means you'll get the errors later on, when writing actual data (i.e. copying files).

(While some filesystems have the feature to avoid known bad sectors, this only works e.g. for HDDs, where those bad sectors generally stay put and new ones appear rarely. On a cheap USB stick with flash memory, trying to use this feature will just slightly delay the inevitable.)

Improve this answer
1
  • Thank you very much for your answer. The thing i wanted to know is if you think it was my fault not ejecting it properly that broke it or if it was only a matter of time and the drive was not really good, since it was almost new. Thans for your time.
    – alenada99
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 9:19

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .