On Wed, Dec 29, 2021 at 10:14 AM Dale <[email protected]> wrote: > > Mark Knecht wrote: > > <SNIP> > >> > >> So while rare, it's not just me. ;-) I've had cards fail by just plain > >> refusing not to mount at all, mounting read only and such. I've never > >> had one to fail like this tho. I guess if this was some sort of > >> sensitive files, I'd have to put it in a shredder or take a pair of > >> scissors to it. LOL > >> > >> I ordered 6 new cards as replacements. They came in yesterday. Like I > >> said, I wouldn't trust that card even if it started working again. So, > >> off to the trash the weird card goes. Now I just have to wonder why dd > >> and such didn't report problems. :/ > >> > >> Thanks to all for the info. Interesting. > >> > >> Dale > >> > >> :-) :-) > >> > > Actually, it's possible that it failed this way by design. What if the > > card recognized that it's in some sort of a wear out condition and > > just shut off new writes? One might see it as a failure but a > > different view is as a potential opportunity to retrieve data before > > it's gone. > > > > You might want to check out this tool: > > > > https://github.com/BertoldVdb/sdtool > > > > which advertises that it can view, set and reset the write protection > > status of an SD card. Can't hurt if you're committed to throwing the > > device in the trash can anyway. (Well, it could possibly hose your > > system if you use it incorrectly or if it has bugs, but that's true > > about all software, right?) ;-) > > > > But at least you could view the status of the card. > > > > Cheers, > > Mark > > > > > > > I downloaded sdtool but I don't have the required devices in /dev to use > it. In the readme it says not to use /dev/sd* but to use /dev/mmcblk*. > It seems my card reader doesn't connect in a way for those to be > created. Would have been nice just to see what it does tho. I still > wouldn't trust it of course but being curious . . . . > > By the way, the card is a Sandisk which has a fairly good reputation. > It is possible that it failed in the best way it could. On the positive > side, it did fail in a way that the files could be recovered. That's > always a good thing. It's certainly better than failing with no way to > get the files. > > Dale
OK, sorry it's not easy. I suppose now that you are using some sort of USB bridge for reading your SD cards? That probably makes it show up as a standard /dev/sd device like other USB drives. I may be wrong, and it might not help you, but I think /dev/mmc is enabled through the MMC_BLOCK option in the kernel, but even if you enable that it may not change things if you have a USB bridge in the way. On Windows there are some partition editors that show the state of these bits. I haven't looked for a standard Linux partition editor that does that but it's probably out there somewhere if you go hunting. If you own a DSLR that supports whatever size SD card you are using then it probably has a way to write protect cards while in the camera. However if it's just a web cam that you're using it probably doesn't but check the documentation. Good luck, Mark
