Write errors on USB pendrives will get reported?

Question

In case there is a write error when writing to a USB pendrive (for example due to a bad sector), should the operating system give me a notice, an error message? And if there is no such error message, then I can be sure (almost) that the file has been correctly written to the pendrive?

I'm talking about any case which involves writing to the pendrive; for example I'm currently interested in creating a password reset disk/pendrive with the appropriate Windows function. I would like to make sure that the data is fine. I'm using Windows 8 Pro 64bit, but am interested also in other operating systems.

Thanks.

Answer 1

in case there is a write error when writing to a USB pendrive (for example due to a bad sector), should the operating system give me a notice, an error message?

Yes, it should.

For info on confirming the drive/filesystem condition, check out this SU question:

how to check usb pendrive if it has bad sectors?

If you're still concerned, make the reset disk multiple times (on different USB drives).

Answer 2

In theory yes, but there some crappy pendrives that do not do that and silently discards the data (i have a few of them)!

Also note that chkdsk won't find badly written files if the error is not in the filesystem area.

The only way to be sure files are copied correctly is to unmount the pendrive, then remount and run a recursive file comparison (using WinMerge, Unison, etc.)

Also if you are copying compressed files (zip,rar,7z, etc.) you can verify them with the builtin CRC32 hashes...