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Rescuing data from a disk with errors
Posted on 01-05-2007 04:45:00 UTC | Updated on 12-06-2014 06:15:38 UTC
Section: /software/dd/ | Permanent Link

GNU dd_rescue is a program that can be used to recover data from a disk with errors. For example a hard disk with some bad sectors. It is a modified version of dd with 2 features that make it great for rescuing data from a failing hard drive. The first is you can tell dd_rescue to start from the end of a file (disk) and move backwards. Second, it uses two block sizes, a large (soft) block size and a small (hard) block size. In case of errors, the size falls back to the small one and is promoted again after a while without errors.

A simple example of what a rescue might look like with dd_rescue is below. Be sure to read the read me file and man page for more info.

Installing on Ubunutu is as easy as "sudo apt-get install gddrescue".

1.

dd_rescue /dev/hda1 /home/pantz/brokedrive_hda1.img

2. Wait a long ass time.

3. Setup image as a device.

losetup /dev/loop1 /home/pantz/brokedrive_hda1.img

4. Mount it (you have to know your filesystem).

mount -t ext3 /dev/loop1 /media/cdrom

5. Change to the dir where the rescue image is mounted.

cd /media/cdrom

6. Look all all your files hopefully.

ls -la

Other free disk recovery software that you might check out is PhotoRec or TestDisk.

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