how do I recover data from a non responsive hard drive?

Lady Fitzgerald · 01 Jul 2014

Layback Bear said:

I have one major rule about a hard drive.
If I have doubts about it I will try to get the information off of it within reason and then take a hammer to it. Done.
If you don't have a backup well you have also learned a lesson.

I don't ever bother check my HDDs' health. I make frequent data backups—at least once a day—and system backups—at least once a week—so if a drive fails on me, I won't lose data. If I add or change data to my computer that can't be otherwise replaced, I immediately back it up instead of waiting for my daily backup; it only takes a few minutes. If a drive starts acting up any, it's history. I'll install a new one and repurpose the old one (I have three dead 3.5" drives I keep around for making PSU SATA power cables). The fourth drive to die on me (I've had only three die so far) will probably be kept around for the same purpose as the other three and any after that will probably get dissected for the magnets, etc.

ICIT2LOL · 01 Jul 2014

I am with Lady F I do weekly back up and really once the data is saved as Layback Bear says just trash the old rive.

The cloning is easy enough but all you need to do si install and then download the back up stuff.

mjf · 01 Jul 2014

[QUOTE=Anshad Edavana;2816879]

If "CrystolDiskInfo" only resets the "Threshold" without actually remapping the pending sectors, the disk won't last longer.

It is a reporting tool only as far as I am aware and I believe it is the HDD firmware that does remapping. I also understand that HDDs can have bad sectors that are mapped out before they leave the factory and you never see them in the SMART data. Some people who come to this forum are not flushed with cash and may want to think twice before totally discarding a HDD. If one of my drives developed a reallocated sector I'd use it for less data critical activities and monitor its condition.

Backing up data is a different issue to deciding when to dump a drive. I have numerous images on 2 external drives using 2 imaging programs but I still occasionally look at the health of my drives. If one was acting up I'd be watching more closely.

Anshad Edavana · 01 Jul 2014

@Canuck67

Please perform the below steps.

1. From Windows, rename your "Parted Magic" USB disk's label to "pmagic".

2. Disconnect the boot drive and connect failing HDD to SATA port one and new HDD to SATA port 2.

3. Boot to "Parted Magic" and open a terminal Window. Ente "fdisk -l" and capture a screenshot using the screenshot tool. Make sure to capture "Active Window" to capture only the terminal window.

4. Open "File Manager" and you will see all recognizable partitions are listed on the left pane.

Open your USB flash disk labeled "Pmagic" and tak full screen screenshot.

Post both screenshots with next reply ( Make sure to not unplug the disks or connecting new one )

Canuck67 · 01 Jul 2014

okay. I'll remove the working drive and replace it with the faulty one, and install the brand new one.

then reboot using the usb and take the screenshots.

while still there, I'll open up firefox and post the screenshots here without disconnecting anything.

Canuck67 · 01 Jul 2014

here they are...

Anshad Edavana · 01 Jul 2014

Let's start the cloning process with "ddrescue". A typical "ddrescue" command line format will be like this ;

ddrescue <source disK> <destination disk> <log file>

Log file is optional but it will provide resume functionality. The screenshot you uploaded shows following info.

/dev/sda is the 500 GB sized source disk.

/dev/sdb is the 2000 GB sized destination drive.

/dev/sdc is the USB flash drive. It is mounted on the mount point /media/sdc1. Mount point is similar to drive letters on Windows. Just like we need to access partitions through drive letters in Windows, we access partitions in Linux via mount points.

Now open a terminal Window and enter the below command exactly.

ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sda /dev/sdb /media/sdc1/recovery.log

You will see a Window similar to the below example.

Depending on the level of surface damage, it may take several hours to complete the cloning. When the last time i used "ddrescue" to clone a 500 Gb HDD with lot of bad sectors, it took almost one day to rescue as much as readable sectors. So wait patiently until it shows the "finished" message and then post a screenshot of the active window.

Btw, if "Time since last successful read" shows more than 3 hours, it means the cloning process hanged. In that case, press "ctrl + c" to abort the cloning and post a screenshot of the window.

Canuck67 · 01 Jul 2014

okay, I'll open a window and enter...

ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sda /dev/sdb /media/sdc1/recovery.log

I'll post back here with a screenshot when finished, whenever that is...

have a good sleep.

Canuck67 · 01 Jul 2014

so after about 10 hours.... the screen changed to this... it looks like it started over???

Canuck67 · 01 Jul 2014

when I last looked at it, the ipos: and opos: were both close to 500000 MB