disk - How to run a checkdisk? - Ask Ubuntu https://askubuntu.com/questions/59064/how-to-run-a-ch...

How to run a checkdisk?

Asked 13 years ago Modified 7 months ago Viewed 859k times

I suspect there might be bad sector on a disk. I used ext3 filesystem.

What tool is the best equivalent of the error checking tool of Windows?
130

disk

Share edited Mar 19, 2019 at asked Aug 29, 2011 at

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Pablo Bianchi Guillaume Coté
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8 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

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Disks

140 To check for bad sectors check the SMART data, probably the best accessible
by launching the Disks utility (Palimpsest). Even if you don't see any bad
blocks there, launch a self-test to be sure.

The program is bundled in the gnome-disk-utility package. Run gksudo

gnome-disks

Or in Ubuntu 16.04 version (3.18):

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Badblocks
You can also use badblocks

sudo badblocks -sv /dev/sda

to just check, or to check and fix first write the result to a temporary file:

sudo badblocks -sv /dev/sda > bad-blocks-result

sudo fsck -t ext4 -l bad-blocks-result /dev/sda1

will check the whole disk and print out all bad blocks encountered on
/dev/sda.

From badblocks manual:

Important note: If the output of badblocks is going to be fed to the

e2fsck or mke2fs programs, it is important that the block size is
properly specified, since the block numbers which are generated are
very dependent on the block size in use by the filesystem. For this
reason, it is strongly recommended that users not run badblocks
directly, but rather use the -c option of the e2fsck and mke2fs
programs.

fsck

fsck itself will not help you find bad sectors, worse still, if there are a lot of
bad sectors it can damage your data even more. Use it only when the disk is
healthy.

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4 Actually badblocks's manual discourages from using it directly and

directs users to e2fsck with "-c" (for read only check) or "-cc" (for read
write check) option. – mrówa Apr 29, 2013 at 21:01

2 as a note, on 13.04 you run palimpsest by just running "disks" from the
ubuntu menu, however...I dont' see an option to launch a self-test
(possibly because I have only one drive, and it's the one running
Ubuntu...) – rogerdpack Oct 11, 2013 at 14:04

2 @mrówa the manual only says to do that if "the output of badblocks is

going to be fed to the e2fsck or mke2fs programs" – Jon Dec 23, 2013 at
14:31

1 Put info that to list all disks use sudo fdisk -l – Kangarooo Feb 26, 2014 at
4:25

4 this is now called gnome-disks – endolith Mar 2, 2014 at 0:47

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Throughout this answer I'll assume, that a storage drive appears as a block
device at the path /dev/sdc . To find the path of a storage drive in our
102 current setup, use:

• Gnome Disks Install Gnome Disks (formerly Gnome Disk Utility, a. k. a.

palimpsest ), if a GUI is available, or

• on the terminal look at the output of lsblk and ls -l /dev/disk

+100 /by-id and try to find the right device by size, partitioning,
manufacturer and model name.

Basic check
• only detects entirely unresponsive media

• almost instantaneous (unless medium is spun down or broken)

• safe

• works on read-only media (e. g. CD, DVD, BluRay)

Sometimes a storage medium simply refuses to work at all. It still appears

as a block device to the kernel and in the disk manager, but its first sector
holding the partition table is not readable. This can be verified easily with:

sudo dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/null count=1

If this command results in a message about an “Input/output error”, our

drive is broken or otherwise fails to interact with the Linux kernel as
expected. In the a former case, with a bit of luck, a data recovery specialist
with an appropriately equipped lab can salvage its content. In the latter
case, a different operating system is worth a try. (I've come across USB
drives that work on Windows without special drivers, but not on Linux or OS
X.)

S.M.A.R.T. self-test
• adjustable thoroughness

• instantaneous to slow or slower (depends on thoroughness of the test)

• safe

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thoroughness. This is generally the best option, but usually only available
on (non-ancient) hard disk and solid state drives. Most removable flash
media don't support it.

Further resources and instructions:

• Answer about S.M.A.R.T. on this question

• How can I check the SMART status of a drive on Ubuntu 14.04 through
16.10?

Read-only check
• only detects some flash media errors

• quite reliable for hard disks

• slow

• safe

• works on read-only media (e. g. CD, DVD, BluRay)

To test the read integrity of the whole device without writing to it, we can
use badblocks(8) like this:

sudo badblocks -b 4096 -c 4096 -s /dev/sdc

This operation can take a lot of time, especially if the storage drive actually
is damaged. If the error count rises above zero, we'll know that there's a
bad block. We can safely abort the operation at any moment (even
forcefully like during a power failure), if we're not interested in the exact
amount (and maybe location) of bad blocks. It's possible to abort
automatically on error with the option -e 1 .

Note for advanced usage: if we want to reuse the output for e2fsck , we
need to set the block size ( -b ) to that of the contained file system. We can
also tweak the amount of data ( -c , in blocks) tested at once to improve
throughput; 16 MiB should be alright for most devices.

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to write. (This will not reliably discover (flash) media, that advertise a larger
size, than they actually have; use Fight Flash Fraud instead.)

• NEVER use this on a drive with mounted file systems! badblocks

refuses to operate on those anyway, unless you force it.

• Don't interrupt this operation forcefully! Ctrl + C (SIGINT/SIGTERM)

and waiting for graceful premature termination is ok, but killall -9
badblocks (SIGKILL) isn't. Upon forceful termination badblocks
cannot restore the original content of the currently tested block range
and will leave it overwritten with junk data and possibly corrupt the file
system.

To use non-destructive read-write checks, add the -n option to the above

badblocks command.

Destructive read-write check

• very thorough

• slower

• ERASES ALL DATA ON THE DRIVE

As above, but without restoring the previous drive content after performing
the write test, therefore it's a little faster. Since data is erased anyway,
forceful termination remains without (additional) negative consequence.

To use destructive read-write checks, add the -w option to the above

badblocks command.

Share edited Jun 12, 2020 at answered Oct 20, 2014

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Hi David - thats an extremely useful condensed tutorial - thanks! May I

point out the error in the "Basic check" area? $sudo dd if=/dev/sdc
of=/dev/null count=1 should be $sudo dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/sdc
count=1 Source >> Destination – CRTLBREAK Jan 12, 2020 at 10:23

1 @CRTLBREAK: Thanks for the praise. The aforementioned command is

no mistake at all. It serves as a very simple read test of the first drive
sector which requires the drive block device on the input end ( if= ).
– David Foerster Jan 13, 2020 at 1:03

fsck - check and repair a Linux file system. Invoke it using

51 fsck /dev/sda1

where /dev/sda1 is the drive you want to check. See 'man fsck' for more
details.

There's also 'badblocks' command which checks a device for, you guessed it,
bad blocks.

The drive need to be unmounted when checked, so to check the root

partition you need to create a file 'forcefsck' in the root of the partition and
reboot. The device will be checked upon the next boot:

sudo touch /forcefsck

sudo reboot

Alternatively, you can boot from a Live CD and run the check from there.

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2011 at 2:52
Sergey
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Thanks, the machine is running without a monitor, is there a way to

access the output of the check after the reboot? – Guillaume Coté Aug
29, 2011 at 3:58

I created the file and rebooted, but it was really quick and there is
nothing new in the boot.log. – Guillaume Coté Aug 29, 2011 at 4:14

fsck just do a very quick check, I tried option -c to check for the bad
block. – Guillaume Coté Aug 29, 2011 at 7:00

fsck -c just said : /dev/sda9: Updating bad block inode. I have no info on
how many bad node and which proportion of the file system they
represent. – Guillaume Coté Aug 29, 2011 at 14:09

1 sudo dumpe2fs -b /dev/sda9 . But I think it is better if the disk takes

care of faulty sectors, not the filesystem (SMART, badblocks etc, see my
post). – arrange Aug 29, 2011 at 16:29

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smartctl
IMO smartctl is a better tool. You likely have to install it first
25

sudo apt-get install smartmontools

Then

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda | less

to print drive health data, attributes, and available test results. To quit less,
type q . Alternatively

sudo smartctl -H /dev/sda

to just print health data.

To begin a new short (a few minutes) or long (up to many hours) self test in
background:

sudo smartctl -t [short|long]

GSsmartControl (home page) and Gnome Disks are graphical front ends if
you prefer.

See also

• Smartmontools

• http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-find-out-if-harddisk-failing.html

• http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/linux-and-open-source/using-smartctl-
to-get-smart-status-information-on-your-hard-drives/

Share edited Feb 27, 2019 at answered Oct 20, 2014

Improve this answer 21:20 at 2:26
Pablo Bianchi Panther
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5 Great solution, if the device supports SMART. Many (cheap) removable

flash drives and very old hard drives don't. – David Foerster Oct 20, 2014
at 2:30

I was initially stumped when smartctl reported: "Unknown USB bridge",

"Please specify device type with the -d option". I found the data I needed
at: smartmontools.org/wiki/Supported_USB-Devices. – Brent Bradburn
Nov 1, 2015 at 5:26

badblocks
22 You can check for badblocks running the command

1. sudo badblocks -nsv /dev/[device-partition] > bad-blocks-

result for a non-destructive read-write test. That will generate a file
called bad-blocks-result with the sectors damaged.

• -n Use non-destructive read-write mode. By default only a

non-destructive read-only test is done.

• -s Show the progress of the scan by writing out rough

percentage completion of the current badblocks pass over the
disk.

• -v Verbose mode.

2. Then, you can run sudo fsck -t ext3 -l bad-blocks-result

/dev/[device-partition] to tell the file system where the bad sectors
are and move data away from them, if possible.

You can find more reading about it here.

Share edited Apr 9, 2017 at answered Dec 24,

Improve this answer 5:02 2013 at 19:51
Pablo Bianchi Dielson Sales
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1 To continue with badblocks later or if you forgot to export the bad sector
to a text file (like me) this answer will help you: superuser.com/a/693000
/218025 – chelder Jan 21, 2015 at 18:22

can I use badblocks to check my windows partition? Or will it somehow

may damage it ? – Private Jul 29, 2016 at 20:14

1 @Private If you have a new question, please use the "Ask a question" link
at the top. – John May 28, 2017 at 3:45

The fsck command fails with btrfs file systems. – Luís de Sousa Feb
28, 2019 at 7:40

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F3 (Fight Flash Fraud) is another option which should additionally detect fake
flash drives (flash drives whose actual capacity is a fraction of advertised
10 capacity):

1. Install F3

sudo apt install f3

2. Insert your drive

3. Write test data to the free space on the drive (check where your drive is
mounted with lsblk )

f3write /media/$USER/D871-DD7C/

4. Read the test data

f3read /media/$USER/D871-DD7C/

Reference:

• f3 documentation site

• Source code

Badblocks works well but it isn't designed for detecting fake flash drives and
may not report any errors for them.

Share edited Mar 15, 2019 at answered Aug 28,

Improve this answer 20:19 2015 at 19:48
Pablo Bianchi bmaupin
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badblocks with -w or with fsck mark sectors as bad/damaged so

they are not used. f3 can return something like Corrupted: 16.01 MB
(32784 sectors) , but does mark those as bad sectors? Or we still need
badblocks for that? I'm trying with dumpe2fs -b and it seems id doesn't
mark. – Pablo Bianchi Mar 19, 2019 at 6:17

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You can test-read the entire disk, while showing a progress indicator:

4 time sudo pv /dev/sdc >/dev/null

Certain disk problems would manifest as reported I/O errors. This is a bit
nicer than dd due to the progress indicator and because the command-line
interface is a bit more standard and a bit less typo-prone. Note that pv is
basically and enhanced version of cat . It may not be installed by default,
but can be installed with sudo apt-get install pv .

A similar approach is to read the disk with one of the several available tools
that are specifically aware of disk I/O errors -- and have the feature of "trying
hard to rescue data". Search for ddrescue in the package manager.

Share edited Apr 13, 2017 at answered Nov 1, 2015

Improve this answer 12:14 at 6:44
Community Bot Brent Bradburn
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This will not detect issues that appear only during write access and it
won't report the affected region of the storage medium that one would
need to fix or work around the issue. dd count=1 is also pretty fast
unless the storage medium is utterly broken (or unsupported).
– David Foerster Mar 19, 2017 at 9:17

See also: ddrescueview – Brent Bradburn Mar 1, 2018 at 19:18

Since GNU Coreutils 8.24+ dd has a progress indicator with

status=progress . – Pablo Bianchi Mar 19, 2019 at 1:25

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If you have a partition that you CAN NOT LOOSE THE DATA follow these
steps
3
1. Determine which partition you want to check for bad sector using the

$fdisk -l commnd

Lets assume that the partition to check is called /dev/sdPTC (partition to

check) and that you have another partition to store the results mounted
on /scan/resultPath/ folder

2. Then you can run this command

$sudo badblocks -v /dev/sdPTC > /scan/resultPath

/badsectors.txt

which will determine what are the bad blocks of the given device and
store them on a file called badsectors.txt

3. Now you can use fsck command to tell Ubuntu not to use the bad
sectors mentioned in the badsectors.txt file.

$sudo fsck -l /scan_result/badsectors.txt /dev/sda

That way life of the hard disk is increased a bit until you get a new one for
replacement.

If you have a complete partition that you want to check for bad physical
sectors and you CAN AFFORD LOOSE ALL DATA on that partition or is
EMPTY follow these steps:

1. sudo apt-get install gnome-disk-utility

2. sudo gnome-disks

3. Check and double check that there is no important data on that partition

4. Using gnome-disks DELETE/REMOVE the partition by hand using the "-"

sign

5. Using gnome-disks CREATE a new partition and select the "slow" option
that will check the given space for errors

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Share edited Feb 19 at 3:44 answered Jul 29, 2018

Improve this answer Pablo Bianchi at 13:17
16.5k 4 84 Mauricio Gracia
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481 2 5 17

Does it matter which Ubuntu version it is? Does bionic beaver handle
disk checks differently? – Gabriel Fair Oct 21, 2018 at 19:48

I have not tried this process on that version. – Mauricio Gracia Gutierrez
Oct 22, 2018 at 15:07

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