Drive has LOTS of Bad Sectors - Help

[Vicenarian]

I think trying CloneZilla first is a bad idea since the drive is failing. I'd go straight to ddrescue or dd_rescue to do block copy of the entire disk. Come to think of it, I seem to recall that CloneZilla has to mount the drive to work, and you said Ubuntu couldn't mount the drive....

I had a WD Raptor fail on me one time with somewhere around 20,000 bad sectors. In hindsight I wish I saved the SMART data for reference because it was just a massive number of bad sectors. I used the regular dd command with some switches (skip?) to insert zero's for unreadable data. Then wrote the saved image to a new disk, repaired the filesystem with another win box, slapped it back in the computer and it booted right up. No further problems.

Thankfully I did that before trying out the SpinRite license I bought just in case. After SpinRite did it's thing for half an hour the drive was totally and completely bricked. I haven't used SpinRite since and probably won't ever again.

Thanks for the advice.

Thankfully, the customer doesn't really need the data on the old drive, but I'm going to give data recovery a shot anyway, for practice.



Again, a BIG THANKS to each and everyone who posted. Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Vicenarian]

I've found with many clients that there are two types of "critical data". The first is absolutely critical and much be saved at all costs. This type of data exists when you tell them they might lose it. Then there is the critical data after you tell them how much professional data recovery will cost. That sort of data turns out to be not quite so critical afterall....

LOL, so, so true.


-----------------------------

 

[Vicenarian]

Man, I feel so nerdy using all these linux terminal commands, but wow...ddrescue is working FANTASTIC so far! (I decided to give the data recovery a go, just to see if I can get anything). I will let you guys know what happens when it finishes.

 

[Bitleveldata]

That's great news! Just a final bit of advice - in case you don't see the required files/directories because of the bad sectors residing in MFT area of the original disk, try to recover the data with the data recovery software first, before running CHKDSK or any other file system repair utility.

@MobileTechie
Since OP's problem seems to be resolved now, I don't see the point of extending this issue any more here. If you are interested in continuing the geeky stuff, we can do so via PM

PS: "Scratching the surface" didn't have the literal meaning of scratching the platters. If it would, everyone typing "ROFL" in an internet chat would have a handful of wounds all over his body due to the literal rolling. All it meant was that it's not gentle with the already weak drives and just rubs them with constant and rigid read/write operations. As Bigfrog commented in this same thread:

Thankfully I did that before trying out the SpinRite license I bought just in case. After SpinRite did it's thing for half an hour the drive was totally and completely bricked. I haven't used SpinRite since and probably won't ever again.

About HDD Reg, so that is not a magic wand. It's just a few line of codes for ATA commands, very well known to any (even starter) data recovery pro. Nothing even remotely Low Level.

 

[MobileTechie]

I'm sure people won't find it too geeky to enjoy and it's hardly off topic for this thread. So if you have info to share just do it here. I'm not big on PM converations to be honest

I was just pointing out that nobody suggested using those tools until a successful image had been taken and even then only for a very specific task - not data recovery. We're all aware they can be the final straw for an failing drive.

 

[RedFoxComp]

Thanks for that link Gazza, but the last bullet states 'if the drive has mechanical problems'.....and everyone has their way of doing things. That's why I stated 'my personal opinion is...'

I'm still curious to know if V is replacing that drive or he just wants to try for data recovery and reimage that same 'bad drive'. Waiting for his response.

If the drive is failing in any way (bad sectors) you should make an image first with getdataback. If you just proceed with a recovery it will read the drive twice, once to 'map' the recoverable files and then again when you select which ones to retrieve. This increases the likelihood that you will lose more sectors or the entire drive during the recovery.

When you make an image using getdataback it only reads the drive once, then all the recovery work you do is from that image.

 

[ITMAN]

one quuestioon, with Macrium Reflect, I cannot image a drive it has needs to be chkdsk'd, it asks me to do it first BEFORE it can image, so question is, how could you image?

 

[RedFoxComp]

one quuestioon, with Macrium Reflect, I cannot image a drive it has needs to be chkdsk'd, it asks me to do it first BEFORE it can image, so question is, how could you image?

Why are you using Macrium Reflect? You make the image with GetDataBack.

Maybe the confusion is that people aren't aware that GetDataBack has that feature? Select the drive you want to recover and then go to Tools>Create Image File