Linux based USB drive diagostics

[philehidiot]

A friend has asked me to help him out with some USB drives he has been selling but aren't working on occasional, random systems (DJ systems which all run on FAT32 due to universal compatibility).

He has been formatting them using a Windows based utility.

I personally think that his problem isn't his product, but is more likely the kit the other guy has is faulty in some way.

I was going to format a couple of new sticks using my Mac (the DJ kit manufacturer suggests this is the better way) and see if he has any joy with them, but I also want to examine the 'broken' stick.

It occurs to me the customer with the issue may have malware on his system, given other customers using the same sticks on identical hardware have no issues. Therefore I was going to look at it using a Linux VM. I have a Kali installation which is well snapshotted and effectively disposible if it gets infected (although I do wonder if there would be a risk to the host machine?).

Does anyone know of any low level USB flash diagnostic utilities that are included with Kali or that I can apt-get? I have two installs of Kali, one on my Mac and one on my Windows 10 PC. Does anyone know if there would be a risk of spreading any malware to these host systems just by plugging it in and then giving the VM access?

[Ice Tea]

If you're convinced they have malware i would unplug the hardrives and boot the pc with linux live disk like ubuntu written to one of those a write once DVD-R disk so it can only ever read from it.

An old laptop would be handy as then you can leave your PC alone.