Re: [gentoo-user] Testing a used hard drive to make SURE it is good.

[David Haller <gentoo@dhaller.de>]

Hello,

On Thu, 18 Jun 2020, Dale wrote:
>David Haller wrote:
[..]
>> Compile with:
>>     gcc $CFLAGS -o ones ones.c
>> or
>>     gcc $(portageq envvar CFLAGS) -o ones ones.c
>>
>> and use/test e.g. like
>>
>>     ./ones | dd of=/dev/null bs=8M count=1000 iflag=fullblock
[..]
>I got it to compile, at least it created a file named ones anyway.  What
>I'm unclear about, where is the if= for dd in the command?  All the
>commands I've seen before has a if= and a of=.  The if for input and of
>for output or target.

==== man 1 dd ====
       if=FILE
              read from FILE instead of stdin
[..]
       of=FILE
              write to FILE instead of stdout
====

note the stuff after 'instead' ;)

>I'm assuming that if I want to target sdb, I'd
>replace null with /dev/sdb. 

Yes.

>As I've posted before, even my scripting skills are minimal.  Surprised
>I got it to compile even.

Well, you could copy & paste and on gentoo, there is bound to be a
'gcc' ;)

>something.  I placed all this in the /root directory.  I'm assuming I
>can copy paste the commands above while in /root to make it work?

Yes. Or put 'ones' in /root/bin/ or even /usr/local/bin. Depending on
if you expect to use the program later on. But if it's just for this
once it's fine in /root/ alongside the sourcecode.

HTH,
-dnh

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