1mbadblocks(1)               General Commands Manual              mbadblocks(1)
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Name

6       mbadblocks - tests a floppy disk, and marks the bad blocks in the FAT
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Note of warning

11       This  manpage  has  been  automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
12       documentation, and may not be entirely accurate or complete.   See  the
13       end of this man page for details.
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Description

16       The  mbadblocks  command  is  used  to  mark some clusters on an MS-DOS
17       filesystem bad. It has the following syntax:
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19       mbadblocks [-s sectorlist|-c clusterlist|-w] drive:
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21       If no command line flags  are  supplied,  Mbadblocks  scans  an  MS-DOS
22       filesystem  for  bad blocks by simply trying to read them and flag them
23       if read fails. All blocks that are unused are scanned, and if  detected
24       bad are marked as such in the FAT.
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26       This command is intended to be used right after mformat.  It is not in‐
27       tended to salvage data from bad disks.
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Command line options

30       c file
31              Use a list of bad clusters, rather than scanning for  bad  clus‐
32              ters itself.
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34       s file
35              Use  a  list  of bad sectors (counted from beginning of filesys‐
36              tem), rather than trying for bad clusters itself.
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38       w      Write a random pattern to each cluster, then read  it  back  and
39              flag  cluster  as bad if mismatch. Only free clusters are tested
40              in such a way, so any file data is preserved.
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Bugs

43       Mbadblocks should (but doesn't yet :-( ) also try to salvage bad blocks
44       which are in use by reading them repeatedly, and then mark them bad.
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See Also

47       Mtools' texinfo doc
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Viewing the texi doc

50       This  manpage  has  been  automatically generated from mtools's texinfo
51       documentation. However, this process is only  approximative,  and  some
52       items,  such as crossreferences, footnotes and indices are lost in this
53       translation process.  Indeed, these items have no appropriate represen‐
54       tation  in  the manpage format.  Moreover, not all information has been
55       translated into the manpage version.  Thus I strongly advise you to use
56       the original texinfo doc.  See the end of this manpage for instructions
57       how to view the texinfo doc.
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59       *      To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run the  fol‐
60              lowing commands:
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62                     ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
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66       *      To generate a html copy,  run:
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68                     ./configure; make html
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70       A premade html can be found at `http://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/man‐
71       ual/mtools.html'
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73       *      To generate an info copy (browsable  using  emacs'  info  mode),
74              run:
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76                     ./configure; make info
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80       The  texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html.  Indeed, in
81       the info version certain examples are difficult  to  read  due  to  the
82       quoting conventions used in info.
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84mtools-4.0.42                       22Oct22                      mbadblocks(1)