Hi all,

new to the forums. hope everyone had a good christmas.

I have a 2tb hdd which has been throwing my back i/o errors when trying to mount it, i took it out my server and placed it in another machine...i can access the drive contents everything but i cannot copy off it without being it painstakingly slow due to bad sectors on the drive.

I have run tools such as SpinRite (which didn't even START to work on the drive), GetDataBack etc but even then it is very very slow.

I have all my movies, tv shows, music, personal documents on that 1 drive...rookie mistake!

regardless i am at my whits end with this and i cannot afford to lose anything on that drive.....

As no tools are working for me I have a theory if any one can confirm.

I have an online back up account where i can upload unlimited data to....if i set the software to upload the whole content of that 1 drive, would it take its time the fact that the drive is damaged compared to a working hdd (disregarding the upload speed)? IF not then i think this is my only solution to recover everything!

I did think about formatting the entire drive and then doing a recovery on it but not too sure if that will help?

What you guys think, your input would be great!

PS: i have tried to clone the drive using drivesnapshot but it come up to something like 5400+ hours!!

HELP

Do not run any utilities on failing dirve, it will make matters worse and spoil your drive further



not only will it take a long time, it will not be able to copy your data as the drive has badsectors



No , it will not help in any way other than making matters more worse



If your data is important, seek help from DR company, they will be more successful in getting your data ,and it should't cost too much.

Taking a clone of the drive is the Best possible option if you are thinking of DIY.
Tools like Ddrescue and HDDrawcopy can be used.
but you will need another working Harddisk of same capacity to make the clone.
(practice on some other drives before you actually try this drive)
Also after cloning the drive ,you may have to use recovery tools like R-studio to get your data.
And the process is time consuming, and Risky.(chances are the drive may fail completely during the clone process).

Whatever you decide, do not use the drive other than making a clone copy .
good luck.

Hi Sathyan,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I will try this tomorrow.

1 question....why will the upload to an online cloud storage site take its time...bad sectors are physical errors correct?

I may be missing something really simple here....

sathyan is right, your only chance to recover data off this drive is if you clone it. Doing so, if made by you, without pro gear, can be fatal for the drive (and its contents). But it's your data, your choice.

My only suggestion is to forget about ddrescue and the likes and contact a professional who will recover the data for you. If you value your data, and it seems like you do, then this is the only option you have I'm afraid, before your drive fails completely. If that happens, then recovery from a pro will be x times more expensive and results will be worse (if any).

There is a rule I use in cases like these: Sectors of a failing drive must be read only once -- during cloning.

Good luck.

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have you already have made a backup, before the drive failed?
In that case retrieve it from that backup.
But if the files are in the drive , and the drive has developed bad sectors, trying to upload to cloud storage does not make any difference as it still has to read the failing drive.

As northwind suggested, a pro approach would be wise because,
Hardware cloning (pro) will give better and safer results than software cloning(DIY)
the chances of the drive failing while DIY cloning is high.
Once failed, the cost of recovery(by pro) will be quite high .

If data is very important, not worth taking the risk