[gentoo-user] Corrupt USB pen drive

[Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com>]

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Hi All,

A colleague used a USB stick on his home machine and when he brought it to 
work he can no longer access it using WinXP.  I offered to help with my 
Gentoo laptop (as one ought to rise to the challenge!) but it seems that 
Linux is also struggling to get to it:
==========================================
usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
scsi0 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
usb-storage: device found at 2
usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access              USB BAR          1.89 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
SCSI device sda: 255744 512-byte hdwr sectors (131 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
SCSI device sda: 255744 512-byte hdwr sectors (131 MB)
sda: Write Protect is off
sda: Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00
sda: assuming drive cache: write through
 sda: unknown partition table
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
usb-storage: device scan complete
UDF-fs: No VRS found
Unable to identify CD-ROM format.
FAT: bogus logical sector size 65535
VFS: Can't find a valid FAT filesystem on dev sda.
NTFS-fs warning (device sda): is_boot_sector_ntfs(): Invalid boot sector 
checksum.
NTFS-fs error (device sda): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Primary boot sector is 
invalid.
NTFS-fs error (device sda): read_ntfs_boot_sector(): Mount option 
errors=recover not used. Aborting without trying to recover.
NTFS-fs error (device sda): ntfs_fill_super(): Not an NTFS volume.
hfs: can't find a HFS filesystem on dev sda.
VFS: Can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda.
VFS: Can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev sda.
ReiserFS: sda: warning: sh-2021: reiserfs_fill_super: can not find reiserfs on 
sda
==========================================

I tried to dd the boot sector so that I can look at it on my hard drive, but 
it cannot access /dev/sda.  Is there anything that I can do with my Gentoo to 
recover the files on this USB?
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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