How to Repair Bad Blocks on Removable Media

You can only use the rmformat command to verify, analyze, and repair bad sectors that are found during verification if the drive supports bad block management. Most diskettes and USB memory sticks do not support bad block management.

If the drive supports bad block management, a best effort is made to rectify the bad block. If the bad block cannot be rectified despite the best effort mechanism, a message indicates the failure to repair the media.

1. Repair bad blocks on removable media.

   $ rmformat -c block-numbers device-name

   Supply the block number in decimal, octal, or hexadecimal format from a previous rmformat session.

2. Verify the media.

   $ rmformat -V read device-name