Hello guys.
First of all, i want to say that my primary language is not english, and if the Subject field needs fixing, or topic is in wrong section of forum, i will be thankfull to hear that from you.

So, here is my problem. A laptop with WD's 2.5 hard drive WD7500BPVT came into my hands. The partition is NTFS. When i connect this SATA2 disk using sata to usb adapter, it gets recognized in a minute or two. There are no mechanical noises, or anything similar. Disk can be accessed from Windows Explorer, but it can take up to 5-10 minutes. It also has the folder structure with all files. Jumping from folder to folder can also take lots of time. What i want to do, is recover 7 folders of pictures from this HDD. I have tried several programs, but the problem is, that speed of reading drops so low, that program only recognizes an error after many hours. Testdisk, for example, said i will need 320 days (7000++ hours), to get the job done, and has a disadvantage, to read whole partition, where i only need 7 folders of pics, which is total of 2,3 Gb only. Unstoppable coppier can get stuck for up to 12-15 hours on a single file, before it even realizes that the sector is unreadable and file should be skipped. GetDataBack gets stuck the same way and takes a very long time, to recognize that the sector is unreadable. The same happens with many free copiers and every other utility i have tried.
So my question... Is there anything that could just skip the file, if reading speed drops below the value given? Any tool, that jumps to next file and forget the "slow-readable" one? It is ok, to lose 20,30 files, but at least i will recover the rest in a much shorter period of time.
Any ideas? Because of language barrier, i'm unable to find the answer. Every tool i have found is good on something, but not in my case...

Thanks

Nothing you can do on your own with FREE stuff , assuming the symptom.

Of course i am not going to invest in hardware solutions or anything similar, because the data is not worth it, but if there is a software solution, then the paid ones will have a demo or trial, so i can test them, right? I wanted to give ddrescue a try, but after reading their faq, i understood it's not worth trying, because that linux tool will act similar way and again on whole partition, trying every sector forever, before it even realizes it's unreadable. Now, thanks to this forum, i found bbcopy. Going to try it.

Hi Okys

had a similar cases years ago before getting into Data Recovery hardware.
Only way in was to avoid Windows altogether.

Linux is not a loss.
Linux Live CD would let me get selective files or folders without getting stuck on say other bad sectors that seemed to lock windows up.
(maybe look at a Fedora Spin XFCE for light weight system)

If that fails you could also try ddrescue to take an image of the drive but check the following article for -arguments particularly -rN and -d

see http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Ddrescue

and more in depth
http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ma ... anual.html

making log file is important so don't skip that.

good luck

Kern

_________________
Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

Might have a head issue that is causing the drive to slow, and also the longer the drive is on, the more heat builds up and slows right down until it does not work. One way is to keep the drive cool while you copy data off it. However, since its a laptop drive, I fear its been knocked around and damaged one of the heads.

Shane

Guys, thanks for all the helpfull posts. At the moment, i have almost done with copying. I am using Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier. Shane, it looks like you were right about the heat. I had a chance, and it wasn't hard, so I put this HDD near open window (it's around 8-10C outside at night) and a spinning fan below it, left it overnight and was very surprised at the morning, when i noticed that job is done. It's only 2 folders left at the moment, one of them halfway. If it goes like that, i will probably finish the task today. From 848 files, i have only lost 7 so far.
Thanks again, everyone!

You should really have tested the drive in Mhdd (to find out where the bad/slow sectors are located) and then considered to make an image to another spare drive before you started copying.
Anyway I usually place a 4 inch case or psu fan on top of the drive blowing the air towards the drive.
When you have finished with Roadkills Unstoppable Copier make a note of the lost files. Then you can try Dmde and target those missing files one by one.

make sure you check those files and they are intact. Roadkills Unstoppable Copier tends to fill the files with random crap if it can't copy the data.

Shane

Hi,
also you might want to also check your USB to SARTA adapter. If it is JMicron chipset (pull it apart) then search for my other post on this forum for a possible fault with adapters that can give file corruption without you knowing it.

I had this exact problem not too long ago with a dying drive. I tried to transfer my data using Windows and Mac OS X and the attempts failed due to the disk errors. The solution was to use gddrescue from a Ubuntu-rescue-remix live CD. It was relentless and despite countless bad sectors, it didn't stop till everything was copied over to the new drive. Took almost a week but I got everything.