memory card tester

Whats a good piece of software to check memory cards out. I have a
couple that I think may have issues (were cheap no branders that were
bought for me, not my choise) and want to be sure if its the cards that
have caused a couple of corrupt images or what.

 

I see testing them as problematic, since they are only 'good' for so
many 'writes'. Hence programs that write and read random bytes would
prematurely wear them out.

I have discarded a memory stick because of probable corruption.

If writing the stick / card from a computer, you could do a md5 check
sum on the original and copy.

See http://www.md5summer.org/ for suitable software.

 

SRCDIR=/directory_containing_just_sufficient_files_to_fill_card
DSTDIR=/media/card # or wherever card is mounted
cp -a $SRCDIR $DSTDIR && diff -u $SRCDIR $DSTDIR

Assuming the card was empty to begin with and tne copy completes
successfully, if the diff shows any differences, then the card has
problems.

 

I think here is Referring to memory cards Not Sticks..

 

If OP is referring to memory cards as used in cameras etc, there is no
significant difference between these and USB memory sticks for the
purposes of this query.

If OP is referring to 'sticks' that form part of a computer's memory
(seems unlikely), then a thorough 'workout' by a testing program is
feasible.

A suitable one is on the systemrescuecd see:
http://www.sysresccd.org/

There are others kicking around too.