Hello people.

I have a 500GB Samsung hard disk that has failed (clicking). I know the hard drive is on it's way out, and I'd like to get as much information out of it before it does (sending the drive to a data recovery company is not an option). The disk contains ~130GB of data.

I've tried to use GNU DDRescue, but unfortunately sector 0 is one of the damaged ones ("DNC" under MDHDD) and RIPLinux doesn't list SDA as available. When I try to run DDRescue it just says that SDA doesn't exist.

I have not checked MHDD's full output, but it looks like most of the damage is contained in one specific area (@14.4%), and there are some marginal sectors here and there. Soo I need to clone this quickly.

The question is: how can I clone this drive when the OS can't "see it"? Is this what MHDD's ATOF do? If so, can someone point me to a "how to"?

Thanks!

This is your only option.

this case is beyond software repair.

Thank you for the feedback, but as I said that's NOT an option

Now... let me get this straight:
Despite MHDD being able to access every single part of the hard drive (even though some sectors return an error), there isn't ANY software tool capable of accessing those same bits and writing them to another hard drive? That's hard to believe... Even MHDD claims to be able to write whatever it *can* read to a file (although I have not found a clear description of the process)

If there isn't one I'll have to go back to my assembler books and write one

If you cannot mirror it with ddrescue to your satisfaction, you aren't going to be able to find any other software solutions that will do any better.

Have fun programming. A free solution to your problem is NOT an option in this case.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Well... that's a bit more informative.

I'm sorry if somehow I suggested I had to stick with freeware -I think I didn't, and I don't-. Since posting this I have read about Media Tools, and it seems to work for cloning bad hard drives. If that's the case then that IS an option. On the expensive side for a single use, but an option nevertheless.

Again, the only reason why ddrescue doesn't work for me is because it works from within Linux, and Linux is unable to recognize the hard drive because of the first sector being damaged. However, any low-level tool should be able to recover some of the data, and I think MHDD proved that. I was just looking for suggestions

I'm not sure Media Tools will work with a 500GB drive.

This makes no sense. You don't need linux to read sector 0 to get access to the drive for imaging. My guess is that you have a drive with at least one head that isn't reading and that you NEED a data recovery lab to gain access to the data.

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Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

Yep... it makes no sense. You should not need to be able to see the hard drive from the OS in order to image it. However, that's the only explanation I can find.

When RipLinux is booting, it throws a {CRC} error, and tries for a while to read *something* (the partition table?) from the hard drive (the error is displayed several times, but it's aways the same sector). Then it gives up and finishes loading. However, if you go to /dev/ you won find SDA (or HDA, etc)., and if you try to run ddrescue it just says SDA is not a valid filename. I tried the same exact command line replacing SDA with SDC and it worked, so the problem is not the syntax nor the executable. So unless there's another way of referencing the first HDD when calling ddrestore I don know how I can use it. Of course, if thereś such other way, I would appreciate you sharing it

I screwed up there. It should read {UNC} error. Other messages you can see on the same screen are something about a failed READ_FPDMA_QUEWED, buffer I/O errors, EMASK exceptions, etc.

You can use HDClone (free edition) or DMDE.

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odzyskiwanie danych z dysku

Just because linux cant access the drive does not mean you can't image it. Try imaging software that bypasses bios or OS.

Thank you @laptokowiec and @mips,

I checked HDClone, but the free version doesn't offer the "SafeRescue" option. Not having it is as bad as it sounds? I have not checked DMDE (yet). @mips: is there any tool in particular you would suggest?

Since the first sector of the drive is missing the partition table doesn't exist (and I wonder if the MFTs got messed up as well). I assume I can find the information for the partition by looking for the NTFS markers, or better yet using a file recovery program (DMDE?). Is there a straightforward way to identify the MFTs and the MFT entries?

Thanks!

Hi, Yes Dmde has all the tools you require. The only limitation of the free vervion is that files can only be recovered one at a time.

You do have several other possibilities to get the image and or data but you would require a 2nd 500gb drive to use as a target for cloning.

Dmde is great and should be able to do what you require.

Another good way and it is also for free is to go to the R-studio site and download the emergency boot and recovery disk. It will boot to a linux os. You won't have a registration key so use the demo mode. From here you should be able to clone your drive to an image file on a second drive. After you should be able to recover from the image file.