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The source code is now available in the hddsuperclone website downloads area. Enjoy.

I have been thinking heavily about making it open source, and now have made the first commitment step. I have placed a free license on the purchase page of the website and disabled the purchase pages. Everyone enjoy the free license, and feel free to donate. The source code will come in time...

Because when major changes are made in the kernel, it can be very difficult to find any information on how to modify the code to work. This can take many hours/days/weeks of time to attempt to figure out. Also, as I have stated in the thread on hddguru, I am very seriously considering making...

First I would like to point out that this is one case where HDDSuperClone is absolutely no better than ddrescue. There is no advantage. Second, it is very capable of cloning a CD/DVD to an image. You only need to choose the "Generic source device" mode, and the CD/DVD drive should be in the...

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.3.2 20220123 * Fixed a bug with Direct USB mode with the Virtual Driver * Change made to attempt to work with sleeping ports HDDSCViewer Changelog version 0.9.beta 20190901 * Added the option Show high time HDDLiveCD changelog...

First, since I missed doing a sale for Cyber Monday, I am having a New Years sale, which I will probably end at the end of January. Information is in the HDDSuperClone Purchase area of the website. New version released. Actually I missed posting about the previous version. HDDSuperClone...

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.24 20210801 * Added the option Fix Driver Memory Error * Added the option Retry connecting on failure after relay power cycle * Added the option Max read rate (kB/s) * The free version now allows a sector size of 4096 HDDLiveCD...

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.23 20210320 * Fixed a bug with the min skip size when updating clone settings * Updated the main window relay button labels to power on/off * Log resets now create a time stamped backup

I have used clonezilla in the past and never had that issue with it being so slow. You need to figure out why it is so slow. As suggested you could try ddrescue or hddsuperclone. Both are designed to work with failing drives, so they are a bit of overkill for cloning good drives, but they both...

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.22 20210207 * Added direct relay support for YEPKIT YKUSH series USB switchable hubs

New version released. Also, the live CD is now based on Xubuntu instead of Lubuntu. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.21 20210117 * Fixed a bug with SCSI and unsupported read 16 command * Added relay activation buttons to the main window HDDLiveCD changelog 2021_1_17 Updated...

Thanks!

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.20 20201206 * Fixed a bug with the log when out of disk space * Fixed a bug with USB direct mode when working with card readers

I have decided to do a Cyber Monday sale. I will probably only get one sale, but no one can say I didn't get into the Christmas sales spirit! http://www.hddsuperclone.com/sitev1/cybermondaysale

The user manual page for HDDSuperClone has been disabled by Google: “This site has been disabled for violations of our Terms of Service. If you feel this disabling was in error, please fill out our appeal form.” It is a user manual. The only recent change is I added a section for a new...

The best discussion about Rebuild Assist is here: http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=30075 I was trying to use it to map heads, but that proved to not be feasible. The current implementation uses it as it was intended in the ATA standard. I utilize its features to skip out of a bad...

New release with some bug fixes, and the new Rebuild Assist option. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.19 20201115 * Added the advanced option Enable Rebuild Assist * Added the phase Rebuild Assist * The identify results now show if rebuild assist is supported * Added documentation info not...

I have decided to allow a couple more things in the free version. There are other free tools to view SMART data, so that is now allowed. And since most that use HDDSuperClone have no idea how to understand the results, I am now allowing the first level of the analyze feature. HDDSuperClone...

When I get topic reply notification emails with a message like this: If you want to view the newest post made since your last visit, click the following link: That link will open the topic, and sometimes it will be in a recent spot that I was viewing, but it will never open asking for a login...

Good catch, I would not have known that. I did not know there was a way to install a program for specifically AMD or Intel. Cloning the whole drive is better than trying to do it by partition, that way you don't have to worry about something being at a different offset. And as long as the...

The short answer is that the last time someone had an issue with libusb, it was something with their OS installation. I just tried to use the latest Mint 20 live iso, but it kept locking up the system when opening Firefox to download, and I have not yet tested it with a manual file transfer...

1) A quick web (Google) search for "how to install rpm file on linux mint" returns results that Mint is Debian based, so you need the deb file, not the rpm. 2) A quick search for "how to install software on linux mint" returns results with instructions on how to install deb files, as long as you...

Before I go any farther with possible DIY options, I would like confirmation from the OP that professional data recovery is not an option on the table. @abrogard, is the data worth spending a few hundred dollars or more for recovery? Because once you go down the DIY road without success, it...

I am not talking about fixing the slow responding issue. I am talking about possible data recovery while still dealing with the slow responding issue. If the drive reads okay but has to wait for every read, with the right software tools there are tricks to get data off of it without taking an...

Are you referring to the "slow responding" firmware issue, or something else like a translator issue? If it just the slow responding issue, there is a DIY possibility to get data off the drive for a cheap price ($25). EDIT: I forgot to say that is only if the OP is not willing to pay for...

A new version of HDDSuperClone is available. The biggest change is that I have added some diagnostic information to the analyze results to help understand what may be wrong with the drive. It gives a percentage chance of a slow responding issue, partial access issue, and bad or weak head. A...

Well, if you figure out what is needed to be installed for it to work, let me know so I can include it. Otherwise I don't know because I don't have any HFS+ to test with.

Try the following command and post back if it works or not (the computer will need internet connection). If it does then I will add this to the next HDDLiveCD release. sudo apt-get install hfsprogs -y

New version released. The biggest improvement is the virtual disk driver is now capable of SCSI I/O, which can be used with DMDE I/O SCSI for improved stability. I also added the ability to change the current position from within the program instead of having to edit the log file, for advanced...

New version released. Along with the program changes, the 64 bit live CD has been updated to lubuntu version 18.04.4 to improve the virtual driver stability. There were some major changes in Linux kernel 5.0 that seem to help to prevent lockups. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.12 20200216 *...

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.11 20200206 * Added the timer option Always wait for reset timers * Improved Direct AHCI mode to wait for drive ready DRDY

So I released this new version late at night, and before I posted here late today someone had upgraded to this version and found the reset processing change was a useful improvement. Probably the only reason I know is they had a question and emailed me. But that is not the point of this post...

Along with this release, I have added DMDE to the HDDLiveCD. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.10 20200202 * Fixed a bug with the log repair taking too long with a big file * Improved Direct AHCI mode soft/hard reset post processing

This release adds a feature that allows targeting of used clusters on the disk, or sectors used by certain files, by importing byte (sector) map files created with DMDE while using the virtual disk driver. HDDSuperClone is becoming more powerful at data extraction with the use of DMDE. Also...

In my recent testing with the virtual driver to extract data, I have found that DMDE works better than R-Studio for integrated data extraction. I just needed to figure out the proper settings in DMDE so that it would continue without constantly stopping with errors. Along with this discovery, I...

Along with this new release, I have also released the videos that I have made so far. I have not put them on youtube yet, but they can be found with the new website section link for video examples: http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsu ... o-examples Version 2.2.8 has been released...

This latest release has some improvements for Direct USB mode for flash drive compatibility, but some flash drives may still not work in this mode. And now I have come to realize that SD cards seem to have an additional communication protocol through USB, and until I can figure that out, SD...

Version 2.2.6 has been released. version 2.2.6 20191223 * Added a warning if the destination is smaller than source * Improved the variance time test of the Analyze feature * Added the advanced option Enable read twice on timeout * Fixed a bug with the virtual driver on some systems *...

Version 2.2.5 has been released. version 2.2.5 20191124 * Fixed a bug with resetting the log and the last sector(s) * Fixed a bug with reverse cloning and the last sector(s)

Version 2.2.4 has been released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.4 20191117 * Fixed a bug when using generic source device mode version 2.2.3 20191110 * Virtual Driver now works with Linux Kernel 5.0+ And for those looking for more help, I am finally starting to find the time to...

Version 2.2.2 has been released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.2.2 20191027 * Skip resets will not stop if max skip size set low * Fixed a bug with SMART where it would crash * Internal program activation improvement * Improved Direct AHCI and IDE motherboard support version 2.2.1...

You can use hddscviewer to get a visual of what it happening. If you can see a clear repeating pattern then it is likely a weak head. Does it have errors, or just slow? If you leave the skip threshold low do you end up with skip reset (a sign of slow responding). Did you use the analyze feature...

So now that I have released the Direct USB mode, there is not much else I am planning on adding to HDDSuperClone. So maybe now it is time for some marketing, and a stab at DeepSpar DDI4. So I am putting the following on the website for the Pro version. The content on the website may change in...

New version of HDDSuperClone released: version 2.2.0 20190824 * Fixed a bug with SCSI write * Fixed a bug with Direct USB inquiry * Other fixes for SCSI passthrough for inquiry and read capacity

I would like to say now with the new Direct USB mode, HDDSuperClone can now be more useful with something like a USB dock. I have a Sabrent USB 3.0 SATA 2.5 & 3.5 dual bay hard drive docking station, and it handled every drive I through at it in testing. Connecting drive directly at SATA is...

Someone pointed something out about my pricing, and I am thinking about a bit of a change. Currently I am charging $25USD for the short term 60 day license, and $150USD for the extended long term (basically lifetime) license. That is a ratio of 6:1. I am thinking of going with a 10:1 or 20:1...

After some thought, I will be keeping on with my work, but I may change how I handle support, and maybe not as many updates/fixes as quick. So if someone has an issue at a time where I don't have the time, then I may say I don't have the time, and that I don't know when I will get to it.

Okay, I think I am coming down off my mid-life-crisis and getting a grip on reality again, not sure for how long though :lol: It has been asked for support of NVMe devices, and I have looked into it a bit. There is no good documentation at all. There is no official "passthrough" as there is...

With all the negative thoughts, here is a positive one. New release of HDDSuperClone, with a new Direct USB feature. Refer to the user manual for more information about the new feature: http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsu ... ect%20Mode HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.14 20190818 *...

I am considering stopping my work on HDDSuperClone, and just making it open source with limited or no further support. It is taking up way to much of my free time to maintain and update it, plus the expected support. And only a small number have purchased the pro version. The small amount of...

Strait from the HDDSuperClone user manual:

So I have been working on my Direct USB mode, which I now have at the beta level, and here is some information. First, this is meant for drives that cannot be connected as SATA. It is not meant to be an adapter for SATA to USB. It could be used for other types of storage devices such as SD...

HDDSuperClone version 2.13 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.13 20190804 * Fixed a bug with the timing byte * Fixed a bug with some USB drives bad reads reporting as good * Fixed a bug where SCSI passthrough would not work on old drives * Fixed the generic source device mode *...

Don't worry too much about the errors you see in the console when starting hddsuperclone. Some of that is from having to run it as root (sudo). You would be surprised how many console errors there can be when starting a program from the terminal in Linux. I have seen many errors from the likes...

By popular request, there is now an available live cd based on lubuntu 18.04 64 bit. This is for those that want to access NVME SSD drives and are finding the 14.04 version is not able to recognize them. And also here are the recent updates, mostly for the pro version. HDDSuperClone Changelog...

I may look into doing this, I don't think it would be too difficult. It may be awhile as it is not a high priority.

I guess I didn't realize it did not have exFAT support already. Done and released.

The smooth part would be the head skipping algorithm doing its job in phases 1 and 2. So in this case of a dead head, you basically already had the best recovery at the end of phase 2. The trick is to be able to understand the results. Someone that is technical could use hddscviewer to get a...

HDDSuperClone 2.1.8 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.8 20190203 * Improved how trimming handles major errors * Added 0.5 sec to the first read soft reset time * Fixed a bug where phase logs were disabled if no log backup * Fixed a bug where the phase logs setting was not...

Yeah, I had been a little bit worried about the hardware compatibility in AHCI mode, mostly due to one of my computers sometimes having a few glitches with it. But then someone (luckily just someone I gave a test license to, not a paying customer) had a computer it just would not work on. During...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.7 released. This version fixed an elusive bug with direct AHCI mode, where I now feel there should be little to no hardware compatibility issues with different computers. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.7 20190116 * Fixed a missing error message when chosing the...

I am glad to know that the new version did work where the old one failed. I am considering the "wrong size / size changed" bug resolved. Thanks for verifying this.

I looked at those log files with a text editor, and can definitely see an issue. All of the log files show zero run time and zero progress, indicating that they are new progress files that have not had any recovery ran with them yet. They also don’t have a progress status line written to them...

A reboot should not make any difference. The only thing would be choosing the same source drive for that log, as one of the checks is making sure the drive size is the same as in the log. There is a terminal window that is opened when running hddsuperclone, please post the output from that. It...

I am not saying that hddsuperclone could/would do any better in this case. I am just expressing my opinion about the remaining time. The remaining time is something that is very difficult if not impossible to predict. I am just giving my opinion on the the remaining time as I see it.

Heh heh, I wonder how long that ddrescue cloning will take to finish. The GUI shows just over an hour remaining (it is using the average rate for the whole recovery). Ddrescue indicates 5 hours 21 days, not sure how that is calculated these days. I bet it will be at least 10+ days.

As stated in an earlier post, make sure you try version 2.1.6 on the drive(s) that it did not work on previously. It has a couple fixes. I would like to know if one of them resolved the issue.

Well, yes and no. Upon even further inspection, the ddresuce 1.23 terminal output is actually from the GUI program. So it can show the terminal output, along with the other output. It is simply a front end to make ddrescue easy to use for the novice. It would obviously be more helpful to have a...

So I didn’t really look that close at your results until now. For the first one using DDRescue-GUI, I can see that it does not list data such as non-trimmed and non-scraped. So the bad sector count of 0 is misleading, there almost certainly have been read errors. For the second one using...

I just released version 2.1.6. With this version, it will give a message for an unsupported sector size, if that is somehow the case. And the other potential issue where it could possibly falsely report a wrong size should also be resolved. I was going over the code, and there is one case where...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.6 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.6 20190102 * Now shows message for unsupported sector size in the free version * Fixed a bug where SCSI passthrough could report drive sized changed

Okay, I am looking through the code, and maybe found another possibility for a wrong/changed size error. But as far as I can tell it would still be triggered by a read error of some sort. Hope somehow it is that possible issue, and your recovery is good. EDIT: After further review, the issue...

That output shows it is not because of the sector size. It it recognized as having 512 byte logical and physical sector size to the OS. So that would not be the cause of hddsuperclone reporting the size changed. With that being the case, it goes back to questioning the data recovered. Hopefully...

Can you at least run that command with one of the USB drives attached that doesn't work with hddsuperclone default settings, and provide the output so that I can see if I am correct about the reason? To change to generic mode, simply choose "Generic source device" from the Mode menu.

Here is a command you can use to show what sector size the kernel sees from the drive. You should be able to run this command from a new terminal window while ddrescue is running, all it does is list the block devices. lsblk -d -b -o NAME,SIZE,LOG-SEC,PHY-SEC,MODEL

:o WHOOPS!!! MY BAD! In auto passthrough it does get the size from SCSI if it is USB. BUT... The free version of hddsuperclone only accepts a sector size of 512 for the passthrough modes ( I kind of forgot about that). The issue could very well be that if the USB bridge is presenting the drive...

I hope the best for your outcome. If the ddrescue result is good, I do have one possibility that could happen with hddsuperclone. When working with a USB drive using the default auto-passthrough mode, it will try to get the best information from a passthrough ATA identify device command. But...

Did you try cloning it first with hddsuperclone, then fix the slow issue, and then use the same log file to attempt to resume the cloning? If so, then it would indicate that the original log file had a bad size, and it was stopping you from using it with the drive now showing the correct size...

There are checks in hddsuperclone to make sure the source drive is still responding as it should. If it is reporting the wrong size, either the log file was started with the drive not responding properly and the size was wrong from the start, or the drive stopped responding properly and this...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.5 released. All of the changes are for the Pro version. Other than fixing a typo that is not documented in the changelog, there is no functionality change to the free version. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.5 20181222 * Fixed a bug where using a relay caused...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.4 released, and also HDDSCViewer version 0.7.alpha HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.4 20181204 * Added read time info to the progress log HDDSCViewer Changelog version 0.7.alpha 20181204 * Reduceded the number of available languages for translation * Improved the...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.3 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.3 20181117 * Fixed a bug where the base skip size was not saved * Updated the user manual section for hiding a drive

Good point. And if it doesn't have a built in eSATA port, it may very well have some type of PCI slot that they make an eSATA card for.

Hi Amarbir, I will start with the licensing. There is the temporary license (currently 30 days), and that license requires internet access every time the program is started. Then there is the full long term license, which is good for the lifetime of the major program version (and I honestly...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.2 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.2 20181029 * Updated the virtual driver section in the manual * Made changes to some internal debugging code * Removed the command line option to set the virtual disk name * Fixed an internal GTK label error *...

I took some time to evaluate how some recovery software worked with the virtual driver. I had already done it with R-Studio, and included how in the instruction manual. I also knew that UFS Explorer and the newer product Recovery Explorer had Linux versions. And there is also DMDE which has a...

HDDSuperClone version 2.1.0 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.1.0 20181020 * Added the ability to control a relay in the Pro version

I don't have one of those to test, but there is no reason that hddsuperclone can't work with one the same as ddrescue. Maybe it doesn't show up in the source list with the default passthroug mode? Did you try changing the mode to Generic source device?

HDDSuperClone version 2.0.3 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.0.3 20181013 * Removed some alpha USB code that could cause a library error * Made changes to the help option to show the manual * Fixed a couple typos in the program * Fixed a bug with autopassthrough on some usb drives...

HDDSuperClone version 2.0.2 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.0.2 20180909 * Improved the virtual driver stability * Added the Slow Driver checkbutton * Removed the button colors from the bottom status bar by default * Added an advanced option to enable button colors in the status bar

HDDSuperClone version 2.0.1 released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 2.0.1 20180908 * Fixed a bug with installing the pro version activation file * Fixed a bug with the virtual mode buttons in the free version * Added info in the manual about the domain with virtual mode buttons

I have just figured out that I am almost certainly going to get sidetracked on the USB relays. That is because during initial experimentation, I have managed to do a very basic communication with a WD board while off the drive in kernel mode via USB. So now I am going to have a hard time not...

Someone bought a 30 day license, WOOHOO my first $20! Oh, wait, paypal gets a percentage and I have to claim it as income and get taxed on it... whoohoo my first $10 :roll:

I know there were those that were interested in the possibility of controlling relays for power cycles. While I don't think I am going to sell the relays themselves, I am now working on implementing some USB relay control into the program. I currently only know how to control the generic red...

Thanks! Now all I have to do is get people to buy it :roll:

The PRO version is now available for purchase: http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsu ... ro-version Here are the features of the PRO version as of the time of this post: PRO Version Features: This is a list of the features that are only available with the PRO version. Please reference the...

New version released. I am almost ready to sell the pro version. I actually am ready, but am now waiting for a technical issue to be resolved with my PayPal account. At least they do seem to have good customer service, talked to a couple people on the phone with almost no hold time on a Sunday...

I hope that the multiple language ability is not a big selling point, because it appears that my method of translation has been greatly throttled, to the point where I may barely be able to translate to only a few languages. So if I am greatly limited in language translation, what are the major...

Yes, but it does not work on SED locked drives (self encrypted drives that have module access locked out).

I already automate the hashes into files during the public build. The only thing I can forget is to manually put the text from the hashes on the website download page. My code is closed source, so I am not sure that GIT is something I can or want to use. Plus I like being in control of certain...

Suggestions are always welcome, but just be aware that I may not implement all suggestions, and even the ones that I do may not happen in a timely manner. You can present suggestions as you wish.

I guess I could turn it off, and if I want do my own check to see of the file exists and then present my own message... Technically you don't get any message for choosing a destination drive. I know at one point in time I had the warning turned off, and for some reason I felt better with it on :?

The warning is built into GTK. I have the option to disable or enable it, but not change what it says. I chose to enable it to make sure the user is clear of the file they are choosing to use for the image, and not overwriting some other file that they did not want to.

I will make a note to put something in the manual to clarify this.

I am going to answer this in chunks as I (my brain) process them... HDDSuperClone will pick up where ddrescue left off using the same destination image file or drive. The only case where you cannot do this is if the ddresuce attempt was for a partition and not a whole drive, in which case you...

A new release is available. I did checksums for all of the downloads, and along with including the checksum text files, also put them on the download page directly. We will see if I can remember to update the direct checksums on the page every time! HDDSuperClone Changelog version 1.99.3.beta...

Right now I only provide the hash for the generic installer, which is automatically generated during the build and included in the downloads. I have thought about also generating hashes for the .deb and .rpm installers, but have not added that yet. Maybe I can try to include that info on the...

Opps, I have too many places to post updates :) Changelog has been updated, at least until the next release :)

I have revisited this, and decided to do something the "official" way. And that is to add links in the applications menu. Putting it on the desktop can be problematic because installing requires root access, and can lead to any attempt for an actual desktop icon being in the root desktop, not...

New version released. HDDSuperClone Changelog version 1.99.2.beta 20180705 * Fixed the exit message when not run as root * Fixed a bug with the slow skips count * Fixed a bug with the last run size value * Improved the skipping algorithm to help extend the range * It will now stop...

And I bet you are forced to run their OS to run the Rocket software. Maybe I am wrong on that, but there is no information to prove otherwise.

FYI Even though I am not planning on spending much if any time playing with the Rocket software, there are a couple things I don't like about ChallengerOS just from a very little examination. First, it is based on Slackware, which is not a very active Linux branch. Second, being an OS for data...

Ok, I played with it for a few minutes, and while it looks interesting, I am not impressed overall. I can't find any help that explains the options, or even much at all. In contrast, I have a stupid big manual where I make an attempt to explain things. And when I found the option to buy, I found...

Yeah, downloading the iso now. I want to see what it looks like. There is not much information on the website. But the fact still stands... HDDSuperClone does not need a card :) And it may be possible to use the Rocket recovery tool through HDDSuperClone virtual mode. But I won't know much...

Maybe this will light a bit more fire under my ass to get the pro version out there: https://www.recoveryitalia.it/products/ ... pci-board/ https://www.recoveryitalia.it/products/ ... er-rocket/ Looks like someone is trying to be some competition in the Linux cloning world. I guess I just need...

The more I think about it, the more I think I will just have a pop up error message when there is a skip reset. This will encourage the user to address the settings issue. I could put some limited information in the popup about Samsung needing higher skip size and WD having a slow issue. I think...

Whoops, the new slow skips count feature has a bug and was also counting bad reads if they exceeded the skip timeout. To be fixed in the next release.

FYI I am working on a feature to analyze a drive by reading evenly spaced clusters, and providing a table of zone data with good reads, bad reads, low/high/average read times, plus a read variance test to help detect slow responding issues. The reading is done in stages so as to best provide the...

That would be too specific and hard to control. I am working on improving the algorithm to be more aggressive to handle a wider range, but the default skip size of 4096 LBA will still only be able to handle a head read size of about 5GB. But I have an idea on how to automatically handle that...

One of the hardest things was to come up with a good skipping algorithm. But to work properly it has to have limits, and those limits are based on the starting skip size. I think I figured with the default skip size of 4096 LBA it could handle down to 20MB per head and up to a few hundred...

Wow, the read size per head is about 15GB. For HDDSuperClone to work well you would need to change the skip size to about 600000 LBA (the default is only 4096). Might need to increase the max skip size too, I don't remember what it sets the limit at by default as I have never encountered an...

My advice is actually to do exactly that. Import the ddrescue log into HDDSuperClone and run it (obviously after you make a backup copy of the log). Considering the ddrescue log file you presented, I would recommend you use the Reset Log option under the Tools menu. That will put all...

As I take a second look, it appears that ddrescue did skip a little over half of the data. It has rescued 235GB of about 500GB and is on phase 3. From the model this drive is likely a single platter 2 head drive. So that indicates a possible damaged/weak head. If possible, please attach the full...

Yep, HDDSuperClone is skipping due to slow reads, although there were a few that were bad (total skips 581, skips from slow reads 482). Plus there are run resets. This is typical of some form of slow responding issue. You can set the Skip Threshold to a higher value in the Clone Settings to...

That is more the equivalent of a "hard" reset (in SATA terms a COM reset, which can also be done with a command). The soft reset is a command directly sent to the drive to tell it to perform a "software reset" with the hopes of stopping its current operation to prevent lockup. But the only way...

Even the free version of HDDSuperClone will stop when the drive goes offline, which sounds like what you are describing here. Ddrescue can't detect that which is why it starts marking sectors as bad, when in reality it is just because the drive is no longer responding. HDDSuperClone can detect...

Sorry, I dropped the auto export to a ddrescue log. But that is because I created HDDSCViewer, which is similar ddrescueview except for HDDSuperClone logs. The documentation is somewhat lacking for it, but there is an auto update option that should not be hard to find. I would not recommend...

This BETA release is finally the real deal. It is capable of activation of the pro version with a license file. I am offering the opportunity for established forum members to get a free trial for the purpose of testing and providing feedback. The temporary license will require that HDDSuperClone...

New version 1.99.1.beta of HDDSuperClone released: http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsu ... e/download HDDSuperClone Changelog version 1.99.1.beta 20180618 * Changed how skip resets are triggered * Added Slow skips to the display * Security lock is now detected * HDDSuperTool is...

Yes, as long as the GNU ddrescue attempt is based on the whole disk and not a partition. HDDSuperClone can import the ddrescue log(map) file. It is recommended to make a backup of the file before attempting the import just in case. You seem somewhat intuitive, so I am going to give you...

Maybe this is a stupid question, but WHY do you want to use PIO mode for cloning a SATA drive? Technically, SATA drives use DMA for all data transfers, even PIO commands. Putting a BIOS in IDE mode allows a simulation to the OS to be able to work with the drive as a PATA drive, but all data...

And maybe I am overthinking it a bit (not like I would ever overthink anything). Maybe only a short term and long term. The short term could be $30 for 45 days, and if you like it and go for the long term before your short term license ran out (maybe a small grace period), the price of the short...

So my mind has been thinking about pricing possibilities again. Since I will be able to do limited time licenses, maybe something like $30 for a 40 day license, $60 for a 120 day license, $90 for a year license, and $300 for the long term license, prices subject to adjustment changes. The...

In regards to the Hitachi SAS drives I was working with, I still don’t know how much of the weirdness had anything to do with the OS or card, but I did find that formatting one to 512 bytes per sector and letting the OS do the writes without scsi passthrough (needed for writing the odd sector...

So right now I am playing around with a couple Hitachi 300GB SAS drives that have 520 byte sectors. They read fast with my card, about 120MB/s. But writes are slow at my default cluster size of 128, the speed is only 14MB/s. I can safely get up to a cluster size of about 504 (something about how...

I know nissimezra made a post after mine, I saw it once a few days ago. So what happened to it? I think I couldn't see it the first time unless I logged in, but now I don't see it at all.

I would just like to point out that the bad spot I mentioned in my previous post looks like it may span across about 10% of the disk (75GB). That is assuming the drive has 4 heads, and doing some math on the skip runs and run size. That is just a guesstimate by what I can see from just the...

It looks like it just got into the trimming phase. The drive definitely has a bad spot, and now that it was is being processed. That is why it has slowed down, the algorithm did its job and got the data from the good areas first, and now it is grinding on the bad spot. Depending on how bad it...

Going the hardware route would just further complicate things, cost more, take up more of my time, and add more limitations. So I think I have ruled that out. After some more attempts to build on 16.04.1 (I can’t even get 16.04 to boot on my one computer), I have decided that at this time I am...

Let the cursing begin! After working out a couple of issues just running 16.04.4 as my primary programming OS, and finding a third issue that involves my driver but seems solvable (kernel change that requires conditional compilation), I managed to produce a live cd based on 16.04 and it seems to...

I have decided there is one more thing I need/want to upgrade before the release. I want to update the live cd from lubuntu 14.04 to 16.04. This means I need to update the programming OS as well to match. I can already tell this is going to involve a lot of cursing. The only thing that will...

If I can easily make the desktop icon work safe and sane even if just on Debian I will do that. If there are any complications then it will wait for later. Right now I have realized a couple things that I need to address with the pro version. The first is a memory issue when the computer has...

This is the desktop entry that works on the live CD. But I don't know the limit of support for this across different Linux flavors. [Desktop Entry] Version=1.0 Name=HDDSuperClone Comment=HDDSuperClone Exec=x-terminal-emulator -e "bash -c 'sudo hddsuperclone;$SHELL'"...

Starting it from a simple click isn't so simple. The program needs to be started with root access, which complicates things. The desktop entries on the live CD actually open a terminal window that starts the program with sudo, and if needed Linux will ask for the user escalation password in the...

Linux is a bit funky about that. I did make desktop links on the live cd, but I am not sure about being able to do that with an installer.

Yeah, I just need to get to a point where I am comfortable, which means I need to make sure the documentation is as good as it needs to be. There are a few quirks and things I will need to make clear. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I need to be comfortable about the...

So I have merged hddsupertool into hddsuperclone so it will be one single executable program, and to run hddsupertool in the future will require adding the option --tool when starting hddsuperclone. This will allow future ability to do scripting directly within the cloning tool, plus now I won’t...

From what I can tell, the mod 02 patch is really the one that fixes the slow issue, as it turns off background scanning. I am glad that you are having luck with hddsupertool for the WD slow fix, and wish you continued success. I don't see many reports of people using it anymore, and sometimes...

I am not trying to sell firmware tools. I have a very good cloning tool, the freeware version is already better than ddrescue. The upcoming pro version has options that are well beyond what ddrescue can do. The idea is to provide a cloning tool that can rival some of the hardware based cloning...

And for a program update, I am currently testing a license activation system. It needs a few tweaks yet, but so far so good. I can produce two kinds of activation. The first requires that the computer is online every time the program is started. This is meant for testing trial versions, so that...

Wow, I did not get any emails that there was a reply since I last posted, and I did not check until today. So here is a reply to a few things said. As for adding the features of hddsupertool into hddsuperclone, that is already on my to-do list. But what is not on my list is to add more vendor...

The nice thing about a price is that it can be easily changed. Maybe I should rethink my target audience and price it around the same price as the likes of RStudio, around $80. Buy a single user license for the Linux version of RStudio, and buy the pro version of HDDSuperClone, and you have a...

That is the million dollar question! To which I have to wonder, what will it be worth? I originally thought about a cheaper lesser lite version, and cheaper limited time version. But at this time I think it will be all or nothing, so only one pro version. I think I want to target data recovery...

I know the pro version will need to be good and not missing things. There are things that even I want in it but have not added yet. I am trying to get the hardest parts done first, the core things that need to work. Getting the driver to work was about the last thing on my "not sure if I could...

Heh heh, I would (and) do the exact same thing LOL :D I spend so much effort on what seems to be the impossible, that I have skipped some of the simple things. Someday I will get to the point where I can get back to those things.

It won't be able to use null as a source device, but I could add an erase (zero or mark fill) option. Until then, there is a trick that can be done to zero (or mark) fill the destination. The following is the basics, I might miss something as I am going from memory. First, use the intended...

In a word, yes. With this method it is possible to create a domain that targets the used space. But as stated, it requires some steps. Here is the basic process. 1) Start HDDSuperClone and choose the source and destination. 2) Put it in driver mode and start activity. The OS will access the...

So back to the programming. After working out some issues with the driver, I have successfully used partclone through the driver to create a domain of used space on a test drive. It is not a single step process, but hey, what do you expect from what should be an affordable option to much more...

Sorry, I don't have a simple guide, maybe some time in the future. But I will say that the simplest way to use it is to not mess with any settings unless you know what you are doing (have read and understand the manual). I made the GUI so that to get started, it will tell you what you have not...

For the most part it should be just as fast as ddrescue. There was a comparison done where it was slower, but I hopefully addressed that in version 1.10 by not turning off the OS buffering for the output file/device. http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsuperclone/manual I don't have a direct...

It sounds like that drive just has a bad spot, which is affecting the MFT / folder data. I would expect a very similar result that you got with ddrescue, assuming you used the option --idirect (short option -d) when running ddrescue.

I think what everyone will hate is, no matter how I look at this, it is going to require a very long license key. Right now it is looking like at least 125 characters. I am surely going to have to supply it as a text file, although I would allow for typing it in if someone so desired :shock:

The "server" would only be needed to install (activate) the software. If you install it on a system and activate it, it would not need to check online again. So the only case where it would need to check online for every run would be using a live CD. And if for some reason this were to become...

To change the subject yet again (blame my unofficial ADHD), I thought of a possible compromise for the licensing. To install the program would require a proper license key and internet access. But once installed no internet access would be required to run. So it could be ran from a live CD if...

Well, it does some of that now. The serial and model of the source are in the progress log, but not for the destination because it could be anything. The current time is also inside the log, but not the start time. No info about the system. As for sectors read and not read, as long as someone...

Okay, I have now had a few inquiries about using HDDSuperClone as a forensic cloning tool. I don't know if it would even be possible to produce a hash on the fly if it does any skipping, and it has not been high on my priority list to look into. But other than creating a hash, what would make it...

Scratch that last idea about adding a function to hddsuperclone to perform actions with partclone. That is too specific. I am already currently working on having the driver mode create a domain based on what data has been requested. And I already have a driver mode that only returns data that...

To add to the last post, since Partclone is a command line tool. I could potentially add a function in hddsuperclone to perform the needed actions with partclone with minimal user intervention. But again, I still have to test to see if it will even work in a worthwhile way.

Yes, imaging only the used space can be very useful. I have some experience with extracting the bitmap file from NTFS and creating a ddrescue domain file from my ddrutility creation. But don't think that I am not going to see if this can't be done with yet another 3rd party software, which can...

So as I am tweaking the driver and modes, I did a test on a 160GB WD drive that has the slow issue (basically about a 2 second delay for each read attempt). The drive will show up, but the OS can't deal with it. I already know the drive has a small bad spot in the middle, I don't remember how...

I would like to correct my statement where I thought that R-Studio was using OS buffering instead of direct access. There must have been too much going on in my head at the time, or I would have realized that because all the reads were no bigger than 4K, there was no OS padding going on. So...

For as long as this thread is, and how slowly I have been at getting this done, I wonder how many will actually read this post… I finally have the driver in alpha stage, and it is working great! :D :D :D I can now produce a virtual block device that other tools can see and work with as if...

To get back on track, I have been experimenting with writing a Linux driver, and have had enough success in testing so far to consider my next step possible (although not without issues that I have yet to deal with). I think I can make HDDSuperClone an interface for other programs. The idea is...

I am not bothering, I am just stating that you should still be able to install HDDSuperClone on that computer using the conventional method. I am considering the issue closed as it appears to be the fault of the OS having issues installing the deb package.

There is not much out there about this error that matches, but what is out there points to an issue with dpkg in 16.04. You should still be able to perform the manual install with the instructions. To extract hddsuperclone, open a terminal and use the following commands (replacing the...

This is not related to the installing issue, but I would like to point out something that has changed in the Linux kernel sometime after Ubuntu 16.04 (kernel 4.4). Somewhere above kernel version 4.4, something changed and there is no longer any ATA return data in ATA Pasthrough mode. So the...

One last thing. Try the following command to install the deb package and see what happens. You should be in the same folder as the deb package for this command, or specify the location. sudo dpkg -i hddsuperclone.free_1.12-1_amd64.deb EDIT: I am not sure why, but some things I have been reading...

If you have not already manually installed it already, please try this deb installer. The original is supposed to run the uninstaller before installing, and I removed that part from this one so that it does not run the uninstaller. I am just wondering if that has anything to do with it, that...

I just did a test again with the live cd version of Kubuntu, and the deb package does install it to /usr/local/bin, so I am not sure what is happening in your case. And if it is not there then you should get a message that it can't be found when you try to run it, that is the weird part. When...

Another command to try to figure out what is going on, it should report the location of the program: which hddsuperclone

Yes I am. One more thing to try. Use the following command to try to start the program and report what happens: sudo /usr/local/bin/hddsuperclone That should start if from its installed location. If that works, then the OS is not loading the path correctly. If it doesn't work then perform the...

The new version should overwrite the old version. But then I don't use the deb installers myself, I only test them. I guess it is possible something could go wrong. But I would really like to know what is going wrong, since this seems to now be reported to happen for more than one person.

Can you download the tar.gz file and follow the instructions in the readme file and either install in manually, or run it directly from the extracted folder? What are the results then? http://www.sdcomputingservice.com/hddsuperclone/readme

So what exactly is the definition of doesn't start? No error messages or anything? I just booted a Kubuntu 16.04 x64 CD and did the "try" option, installed the deb package from a flash drive, and it opened fine. But that does not account for any OS updates as it was a live cd boot.

Even so, it still is not really possible to include a checksum calculator on the fly. If any read errors are encountered, the program will skip, and come back later to attempt that data. And the program can also be stopped and restarted. I just don't see any way it could be done reliably on the...

I would like to say that I am not sure that HDDSuperClone should be used for forensics work. Because you are plugging the drive directly into a computer that could potentially perform operations on the drive, I could never say in court with 100% certainty that the drive had not been altered...

Version 1.12 has been released. The GUI is no longer considered beta. I spent a lot of time testing the options to make sure everything works properly, although there is always the possibility of a bug here or there, just like any software. I found several little things that needed attention...

Heh heh, had to try it in generic mode (like ddresucue), and it reports a size of 0, ddrescue sees the same. So reading a 520 sector size SAS drive appears to be something that ddrescue can't do. All the better for me :mrgreen:

Never mind, I was just not using the correct command to list the drive. And the scary thing is, if I would have actually opened HDDSuperClone and let it try to find the drive, it would have found it and listed it because of the simple way it looks for drives in passthrough mode :roll...

So the card and cable arrived, and I hooked up the drive. It sounds like it has lots of activity for a bit when powered up with no bad sounds, and then has a "heartbeat" every few seconds once it settles down, but it is not showing up as a device. I am sure the card is showing up as a RAID...

Yes, and the cable I ordered is similar (I choose one with MOLEX power connections for my application). The hardest part was figuring out that SFF-8482 was the standard SAS drive connector. Google did not do a good job answering that question.

Time for me to get schooled on SAS drives. The one with the fiber channel interface showed up today (on a Saturday, not sure how that happened), and when I looked at it I realized the fiber channel interface was just an adapter, and the drive appears to have a normal SAS interface. So the cable...

I think I now have a drive and cable coming that will work. And if I am reading the description right, it might be a lot of 3 drives (listing starts with "3x"), but it doesn't specifically say a lot or quantity of 3 so I will find that out when it gets here. I might consider that fiber channel...

I guess I should have looked for the cable type BEFORE buying a drive like the one you referenced. And that is because it is a FIBER CHANNEL connector!!! :o :shock: :( So I have a drive coming that I can't hook to anything. Good thing it was not that expensive. So now I need to find a drive...

The next release will have the ability to read from any standard block device, along with any standard file. The only limitation is that the source total size must be evenly divisible by the sector size.

I just ordered a used card and drive. Now please forgive me for being stupid, but what cable(s) do I need for this?

In the end it is not critical, as from what I can tell it could still be chosen manually. Currently when choosing a drive as the target it will only list devices that are in the form of /dev/sdx, but if you choose an image as the target you can navigate to /dev and choose any device, although it...

Yeah, hwinfo does not appear to be a standard in Linux. How about the following command, does this work? It is supposed to list all block devices. lsblk

What command do you use to list available drives that shows /dev/nvme0n1?

If it shows up as /dev/nvme0n1 then HDDSuperClone can't handle it, at least not yet. I was trying to get a release out this weekend, but I keep finding more quirks to take care of. So I guess I might as well hold off on the release and work on adding the "normal" read, although I am not sure if...

How do those devices show up in Linux? Why can't HDDSuperClone work with them? It should be able to work with them in SCSI passthrough mode, as long as they show up as such a device. Edit: If they do show up, what sector size do they report?

Nope, HDDSuperClone cannot currently do that. I guess it would not be too hard to add a "normal" read mode in a future release, but not a high priority at the moment.

Well, I have the pro options in my GUI now, although I do not have the licensing worked out yet. But I would like to make a few observations about some things I have found. I originally thought that my test drives were not responding to the soft resets in PIO mode but were with DMA. For the...

I have little doubt that I can read the 520 byte sectors. I use the same SCSI passthrough that SG3_Utils does. It is simply a matter of expecting 520 bytes of data instead of 512. Actually, HDDSuperTool should be capable of reading those sectors with a simple script. I just lack the controller...

Thanks for the info on the controller. I might ask on HDDGURU for recommendations on a controller that meets my needs and see what the response is. The AOC-SASLP-MV8 is still available if that is what would work the best. Did this work out of the box in Linux? As for 4Ke (emulated) drives, one...

I would also like to add that I based the scripts from drives that worked and were able to access the data. It is very difficult to know what to expect from a drive that responds differently if you don't have one.

Very possible. It looks like dump all modules was chosen, so it would have tried module 01 first to get the list of modules. Module 01 should always have data. There is not much error handling in the VSC scripts, only what is needed to prevent obvious damaging commands to be sent to the drive...

I know this is a late reply, but this can explain why. When it tried to read the module (I think in this case this means the first module), the processing showed the module was 0 bytes in length. It likely means it read all zeros, which means there is likely no access to SA. The error is...

I am glad the extra 8 bytes can be omitted, because it does seem vendor specific (to the SAN), and related to extra info about the RAID array which I am not going to get into. I have a couple obstacles I would need to overcome to do this. The first is that I have slightly hard coded...

I am not sure if I never saw this post, or just don't remember. I SHOULD be getting notices for all posts here, but not sure if that is happening. Anyway... 1) Would this really be a very desired feature? I think it to be possible. 2) Am I correct that the data is 512 bytes, and the rest is...

It could end up being option 3, but I may have to rethink how the program data is derived from the key. Right now my math says I would be up to a 40 character key (a typical Windows key is 25), and that does not leave room for any additions :shock: As for prices, not there yet. I have one...

And as I think about it, for limited time usage (like buying a 30 day license), I could use a combo of 1 and 2 to make it secure. Still more work though, not yet sure I will go with that. I would kind of like to have a limited time license, but not something so simple that changing the date on...

As for option 1, I was really only thinking about it for limited time usage. And not an activation server, but an available hidden file download to get the data, which would be used in combination with the key. It is actually not the most secure method. It is also not the easiest. I do kind of...

So I now have all of the free options in the GUI. It is (finally) time to start working on things for the paid version. It is time I need to commit to a licensing method. I have some options. 1) Use a license key in combination with online data. This requires the computer to be online every...

Well, it is at least changed in the command line mode to be enabled, so it should be faster now. And be prepared, I now have all the free options in the GUI. Once I get all the other special options in the GUI, the command line mode will be removed. Maybe not right away, but I am not adding any...

Please test with this latest version to confirm that it resolves the major speed difference. I would like to point out that in my testing, I did find that for some reason, the ATA passthrough mode seems to be slower than the SCSI passthrough mode in some cases. It seems to be just as fast...

I have added an option in the GUI to enable or disable the OS write buffer in the latest release (version 1.10 released 8-27-17). It is enabled by default, which seems to be the faster setting. For those still using the command line mode, it is enabled by default with no way to disable it.

After some testing I have found the condition that causes this. Most of my testing has been to image files which seem to respond better to using a direct non-buffered write. But when cloning to another disk the non-buffered writing is slower, by almost exactly the 30% reported. So my instinct...

If it does turn out to be the writing process, please add the option --odirect to the ddrescue command to see if it slows down to the speed of hddsuperclone. If it is not the writing process, then try running hddsuperclone in the two different modes SCSI and ATA passthrough, and see if there is...

I would also like to know the computer CPU info (family and speed), and what Linux OS (including version) you are using.

Please do a simple test for me. When you have a drive that is that much slower with hddsuperclone than ddrescue, do a short test with /dev/null as the destination for both programs. You should only need several seconds or so to see the speed. Let me know what the speed difference is. That will...

I was searching around and found this post. I would like to add some information. First, I only helped with the ddrescue algorithm between versions 1.17 and 1.19. The original algorithm was very jumpy and would cause much head movement, and I assisted with making it better for real world...

I have released a new version of hddsuperclone, along with hddscviewer. I have included language packs in both, so the language can now be changed at program startup without having to do the translation yourself. As stated, it uses Google Translate for the translations. I have not yet had time...

@Amarbir, just understand that the way this works is that when I build a version of the software, it will be translated by Google Translate into the files. At this time I don't have any provisions for including specific corrections for any given language. So please don't spend too much time...

I am using Google Translate for all of its available languages. From the official list found online it is 104 languages (including English, which means I am translating to 103 other languages). I have read that Google Translate support 105 languages, but I only found 104 language codes in the...

I have been working on the language translation possibilities. My original idea was to allow the export of a language file that could be translated using Google Translate and then imported to change the language. I am now planning on taking this a step farther by providing all of the translated...

FYI someone else also sent me a more detailed bug report about the installation error, and it has been fixed already, just didn't think to post that here.

When I have time, I will try to look into this. But have you ever tried installing any of the older versions on the Knoppix live USB?

I would like to announce that a beta GUI version of HDDSuperClone has been released. Still only the free version, but this is the big stepping stone in my quest. It still needs some work, but I believe it should be fully functional as a cloning tool.

Here are a couple teaser screenshots of the working beta GUI version, just so you know that I am actually still working on this. Hopefully I will have a release version withing the next couple weeks. I still have some tweaking to do, some of it is still a bit clunky. But I am finally to the...

But I am thinking that I may try out the lite version with just a serial code and see how it goes. But I have to make the lite version worth buying first...

I know the safest way is the usb dongle, but that is not cost effective unless it is very expensive and desired software. I am not sure if this will qualify for that. I don't think that this will be a big enough target for hackers at first (or maybe not ever?), but if just a simple serial is...

So as I work (slowly) on the GUI version, I have been thinking about how to how to maintain licensing. The USB dongle idea is the ultimate protection, but it is costly in price. Plus then it absolutely requires shipping. Someone may wish to use the pro version without the relay hardware, or...

Never mind, he switched to an older computer and different version of Linux and seems to be able to get to safe mode now.

I was trying to think of the best way to reply to this, and you beat me to it. I was trying to think of what to say to defend myself, but the truth is that I don't need to. Amarbir, you are posting rude and insulting comments in a forum section that is specifically for the software (or person)...

So to hopefully get back on track here, I have been working with someone in an attempt to perform the slow fix on a WD USB drive that appears to be locked in some way. The current status is: 1) Modules can be read with normal VSC commands 2) Modules cannot be written (it fails) 3) ROM can be...

If you read what I said carefully, you will see that I did not disagree with you. I just didn't like the way you worded it.

There is a script that can write WD modules, but only one at a time, not all at once. It can be found at the following link. Don't use the one from the first post, there is another a few posts down that has a bug fix. Use it at your own risk. http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=171&t=1834...

So it has been awhile since I have posted any update progress. I am still slowly working on the GUI for HDDSuperClone, but sometimes I get sidetracked by something. My most recent sidetrack is that I have added scripts to HDDSuperTool to read and write ROM on WD ROYL drives. While this would not...

I have been working overtime and have not had much time to work on this lately. And what time I have had I spent having a fight with the automated tool that I was using to remaster the Ubuntu based live CD (scrapped the tool and am using all scripting now, much more consistent). Anyway, I have...

I would like to ask a technical question about head movement. A user has provided a progress log file that shows that one head of four appears to be totally dead, but then there are also a couple spots where it appears that the other heads are also having issues reading. I am wondering how this...

I finally have a report where HDDSuperClone free version very much outperformed ddrescue. The short version is that the drive appears to have one head out of four that is not reading any data at all. The user gave up trying with other cloning tools, including ddrescue, because they were taking...

When the time comes I will be more than happy to accept offers for proper translation. One issue will be that every time I release a new version it could require additional translation and any language file from previous version may not work for the new version. I am thinking that I will need to...

:lol: :ugeek: So as I was playing around with Bing Translator, I saw the option and just had to do it. Here is the same code translated to Klingon :lol: :ugeek: _hddviewer_0.3-alpha_20160820_ ___0___ teywI' ___1___ bup ___2___ ghIt ___3___ Qagh! ___4___ warning

So as I have started to work on the GUI version, I have decided to try something I never thought I would attempt. And that is multi-language support. It requires more work in the programming for me, but now is the time to implement it since the GUI is in the beginning stages. The concept is...

I have released a new version 1.2 of HDDSuperClone free, with the most important additional features of enabling ATA passthrough and the skip threshold timer for the free version. That makes the free version pretty robust, and in my opinion it is much better than ddrescue. I have also been...

I got sidetracked yet again and went ahead and did something I said I was not going to do. It had been requested more then a few times, so I decided to look into how much work it would be. And somehow I managed to find a way that was not too difficult or time consuming (still not saying it was...

I did more research on DMDE after I posted here and do see it is geared more for file recovery. I am more focused on the cloning aspect of things for now. I would also guess that the Windows version doesn't suffer from the issues that the Linux version did in my test. As for imaging, I would...

I have seen a few references to DMDE and have just now tried out the free Linux version. It had a DOS style interface and was very slow to respond to commands (maybe because it is the free version?), and locked up on me a few times.I see it has a reference that the paid full DOS version has the...

I released an alpha of HDDViewer a few days ago. I call it an alpha because I had intentions of putting some extra abilities in it, but it currently does what it needs to so I am not in any hurry to make it better. I am attaching a few screenshots of it in action on a 8GB chunk of a 160GB drive...

I would also like to defend my new HDDViewer as an important tool in helping the end user to understand and "see" what is going on with the recovery. I initially had some great ideas as to what I was planning on adding to it, but I think that once I have the main visual aspect down (might be at...

You are right, it does not need to be the best looking interface, and it probably won't be either. It won't have the real time bitmap viewing for sure, after seeing how much resources it would use (even though I have already made a significant improvement in that respect). But I also don't want...

What I am trying to do right now is the approximate equivalent of ddrescueview. It loads a log file and creates the display. It will have most of the basics that I need to learn for GUI programming. You are correct that just a GUI for the functions and options would not suffer the the CPU usage...

Thanks for the links to the other programs in action. They will be helpful. As I began attempting to make a GUI for hddsuperclone, I did not get very far at all before it became apparent that I have two issues to deal with. Learning how to do the GUI, and restructuring some (maybe more then...

I am currently in the learning stage for making a GUI. This is the point in time where I need to figure out what it needs to look like. I could use some screenshots of other disk imagers at work, both when imaging and when setting the imaging settings, and what is liked and not liked about the...

Yeah, the plan was to work on the GUI next so I guess I should stick with the plan. But maybe with a bit of a twist. I was going to use ncurses as the base for the GUI which is all done in a terminal and would have that dos style to it with no use of the mouse. But now I am looking at GTK which...

I have upgraded the free version from beta to stable status. I have also now added .deb and .rpm installers to the downloads, although I still need to do this for hddsupertool also. I haven't had as much time as I would like to work on it, so it has been a slow process as usual. But now I am...

I do not have any experience with a failing SSD, so I do not know how well it would react. The head skipping algorithm would likely not be useful. And I don't know what kind of errors an SSD would report. In theory it should still work at least as well as ddrescue.

Just updated it to BETA status. I still have a few improvements I want to do to it before I start working on the more advanced paid versions. But I consider the free version stable at this point, at least until someone reports a bug! Now it just needs some testing to make sure. I posted it on...

Agree. And there is also the liability of importing a log from a botched rescue. Because is was not made with the hardware imager, it cannot be verified to be accurate. And with ddrescue the log is in bytes and can very easily have many areas that do not align with sectors and have a split...

So while on the subject of log and domain files, the structure of a ddrescue log file is well known and can be easily imported and exported. But what about the hardware imagers? Do they offer the ability to import something like a ddrescue log file if the drive was already partially imaged that way?

I did get a response back. The drive is being imaged by ddrescue now, and when finished it will be tested with hddsupertool. And I have been so focused on getting the core imaging process working properly, I almost forgot about adding the domain file ability, which I was kindly reminded of. And...

Version 0.5-alpha is released. Dividing did not work in reverse, it would get stuck on a position so needed to be fixed. Maybe someday I will get it to a stable beta version, it has to be close :roll: I had an email a few days ago from someone trying to use it against ddrescue with a USB...

:( Epic failure on trying to get that drive to be seen by Linux. It isn't the log, it is failing reading sectors at the beginning of the disk. I have erased sector 0 so there is no partition table, so why the hell is Linux trying to read sector 984 :?: :!: I tried to erase it and it looked...

Version 0.4 has been released, and reverse is now implemented. I had a scare when doing data integrity testing, but luckily the bug does not affect the free version (WHEW! :? ). I have performed data integrity tests on the free version for both normal and reverse modes, and it passed both...

While I do live in a state surrounded by water on 3 sides, it is fresh water :) I may just take you up on the offer, and of course offer to pay shipping (as long as you don't overnight it!) The first requirement for any drive is that it must be visible to a computer bios. If it cannot be seen...

Ghost can actually image a drive with a few bad sectors? I thought it would choke...

I live in the Unites States of paranoia and lawsuits. Any reputable computer shop will have a destroy policy to cover their ass. As for buying them, I am on a budget and would only pay for failed drives that met certain criteria, and the issue then is that it would have to come from someone that...

On a side note, I stopped at the local computer repair shop today to ask about the possibility of getting some failed drives. I got the response that I expected, that they destroy the drives. The last time I was there I asked about data recovery and was told that while they didn't get into...

Just to be clear, HDDSuperTool and HDDSuperClone are in the same family, and share the same IO code and some other common code. But I could not see an easy way to implement cloning ability into hddsupertool, so wrote hddsuperclone as a separate tool. There will likely never be a separate paid...

No, hddsupertool is completely script based, and the imaging script I wrote is very basic. And while it could easily be modified to image in reverse, the scripting causes so much overhead that it can never be a good cloning tool. It is maxed out with just the very basic imaging process. That is...

Alpha version 0.3 is released, still only the free version. I am almost totally positive I have figured out how to detect when a drive either faults out or just quits responding when using the passthrough as the free version does, and it will exit with an appropriate exit code. It is about ready...

Wow, two minutes is a long time. One other thing about IDE drives is that you cannot power cycle them and expect to connect to them again, at least not with the OS as they are not considered plug and play. After power loss the drive will come up in the lower PIO and DMA settings as negotiated by...

Hmm, I was wrong about IDE results being the same. I have made it so that it will recheck the drive size after every error, which seems to come in very handy for passthrough mode. When the power is pulled from an IDE drive, hddsuperclone will exit. Ddrescue however, will continue on while...

I made a few modifications already, so if anyone downloaded the initial 0.1-alpha release, you should download the newer 0.2-alpha release. It now will also exit in other circumstances where the drive goes bye-bye with an exit code of 63 (0x3f). Version 0.1 might not exit and continue with the...

Don't get too excited as this is just the free version, but I have released an alpha testing version. But I do need some specific testing of this. I need it tested on a few drives that will go into device fault (disappear from the likes of ddrescue). I need to know if it will exit with an exit...

From this lesson I have added an extra copy phase. Phase 1 and 2 are still with the head skipping algorithm, but now phase 3 is a forward pass with fixed skipping based on the read rate. It is the last chance to get more data from a weak head fast. Phase 4 is now what phase 3 was, which is...

NTFS And it doesn't matter any more. I have coped what I think I wanted to keep, and have now reformatted the drive that it was cloned to. I can't tie up the good drive any longer so the deed is done.

Well, one I was hoping for is a 160GB image. That will most certainly be corrupt in this case. I have some other large multi GB backup recovery files that I am not even sure would be useful now even if they were not corrupt, so I am not even going to bother with them. And there are some other...

Yes, statistically this is a good recovery. And I am getting many good files from it, I think. Just not the large ones. My ntfsfindbad showed almost of the bad files were ones I did not care about. But it is flawed, as I found that it was not reporting on the larger files (this is caused by an...

Yes, but if that 3% is all one head and spans across the entire disk, then very large files are almost certainly damaged. There were a few places where there were very long runs with no errors, so one can still have a bit of hope. Getting ready to check it in a little bit...

That is a matter of perspective. For a personal recovery, that could mean getting most of the important documents, pictures, videos, and other. Some pictures can handle a bad spot and still look okay, videos can usually handle small bad spots and still be okay, documents are usually small enough...

The drive recovery is up to 97.79 percent, and I am calling it quits. According to my calculations, the rest would take a few months. I think I will run my ntfsfindbad on the clone and see what files are worth keeping from the recovery attempt. Some of the files that I was hoping to keep are...

And you are going to wait a little bit longer for that now. This is a bit of a setback. I was planning on doing some drive cloning/swapping to improve my test system and get a second system up and running, and now I am going to be a drive shorter than planned, plus I am tying up the drive I am...

Yes, but isn't that the point where a professional would do a head swap to get things moving along again so it would not take weeks or longer?

Made it to 91.6% and it slowed to a crawl. I am now reading single sectors with a 500ms timeout as that seems to get the best results. This is going to take several days, if not a few weeks. :(

Well, it looks like the head skipping algorithm worked well. The first two passes with skipping yielded 90% in about 7 hours. But that last 10% is going to take awhile from what I can tell. If anything this is a good test drive now. Just still hoping for that last 10% to be successful.

And this just gave me a new idea for the skipping algorithm. Skipping could be made to be triggered by individual slow reads, not just errors. Sometimes it takes an unusual circumstance to bring out an idea.

hehehe, I am hoping that I can get a 100% recovery from it, but just after that I would not mind a good failure :twisted: I am going all out on this test, um, I mean recovery. At first I thought there was just a bad spot at the beginning of the disk so I skipped ahead a bit and all seemed...

Looks like I am done playing for today. Just noticed that my 2TB Hitachi in my test machine was reading very slow. Checked the smart data and plenty of reallocated sectors. The strange thing is that neither the computer BIOS or Linux gives any messages about the drive failing, even though it...

The first release will be the free version that only uses SCSI passthrough (would also probably unlock ATA passthrough for testing purposes). And the first thing I will need tested is the ability for it to detect a device fault and exit. So if you have cases where the drive needs to be power...

So I just upgraded my main drive from a SanDisk 256GB SSD to an Samsung 500GB SSD. I first tried to clone using Clonezilla (thought it would be faster), but it failed on one of the partitions. So I got crazy and used my own HDDSuperClone tool to clone it, which took just over 31 minutes. As I am...

I believe I have a good skipping algorithm for it. It learns as it goes and does the best it can to adjust to what it thinks may be weak/bad head so that it can get the most good data first. But I have also been playing around with trimming vs splitting (different than ddrescue splitting)...

It's time to officially name it. The new Linux cloning tool will be named HDDSuperClone. It is currently in alpha testing, and for the most part functionally stable. There is much work to be done before a beta release of the free version, but I just wanted to make sure everyone knows I am still...

Even so, it is still flawed. If you look at both, there are a few random areas in the good head that have errors and had some skipping happen. This condition can easily happen if a timer is set low to speed things up, and there are any somewhat slow areas (likely what happened in my results)...

Here are a couple screenshots of ddrescueview analysis of a smart self learning head skipping algorithm I am working on. This drive has only one platter with 2 heads, and actually only has a weak/damaged head that has many single sector errors, but this drive is actually 99.9% recoverable. The...

Just an update on the cloning tool. I have a working alpha version (command line only) that seems to be working and has passed an initial data integrity test, although it is not ready for the public yet. I am thinking there will be three separate versions: A free version that is command line...

I was thinking that those small power adapters that come with many of the USB to SATA/IDE adapters would be a good choice, but alas, they do not seem to have very stable voltages. So it looks like the power will come from the computer being used. That is the only safe way. So I will take both...

So after I posted that, I realized that I really do not know if any of the other tools that can perform the slow fix are actually free. So are there any free tools than can perform the slow fix on a SATA drive? I would just like to make my statements as accurate as possible.

Ok, I will not argue about the free part. I should have clarified that in the original post. My mistake. I meant that there are other free tools that can do that, but HDDSuperTool is the only known free tool at this time to be able to do it via USB. I think I will edit the original post to...

While the biggest interest on this forum seems to be the upcoming cloning tool (which I am currently working on), I would like to point out something that HDDSuperTool can do now. It is known that some Western Digital drives can suffer from a firmware issue which causes them to be very...

FYI Link to the information about controlling these relay boards http://vusb.wikidot.com/project:driver- ... -interface

There are 4 different versions of that: 1, 2, 4, and 8 relay board. The 1 and 2 relay boards are 5v and fully USB driven (I have two of the 2 relay boards). But the 4 and 8 relay boards require a 12v power supply to run them. What I need to do is figure out what I need to accomplish and how to...

I have thought of a fatal flaw with my idea to use a separate actual computer power supply as the power source, which can be summed up in the phrase "potential ground loop". :( So my next question is: Do any of the professional tools supply the 3.3v for SATA drives? I have read that almost...

That sounds great in theory. But what if the user has the drive touching a metal part of the computer or the power supply? That could easily create another ground path, and not a very good one either. I will not use a relay on the ground as too many things could go wrong.

At this time I only have the ability to control a limited number of relay boards, and the relays are all single pole double throw, so it takes two relays to do the 5v and 12v. And what I did not mention is that it will take extra modification of the power supply wiring to achieve this (cutting...

There are two ways I can power cycle a drive. The first method is to use a computer power supply to directly power the drive, and to use a relay to turn the power supply off and on the same way a computer would do. The second method is to wire two relays into the 5v and 12v wires to the drive...

Since the two things I can't do with software are hard resets on PATA IDE drives and power cycles, I was wondering what the value is for the hard reset on these drives as compared to a power cycle. I want to know if it is worth it to make modified ribbon cables to be able to perform this hard...

I am adding a simple example to perform an identify device command. But I obviously have not even tried the -- command option in a while as I found it to be broken. It was not opening the disk for access in passthrough mode so it would just give an IO error when trying to send commands. I am not...

It is finally time for beta testing! The link to get more information is below. Available files will be password protected, and you will need a valid license key. At this time the only way I am providing that information is through PM on this forum. Please request such information from me if you...

I will see what I can do for that. Will be fixed in next release (code is implemented and tested). It will extract the directory path from the script file name that was entered on the command line, and will look for all includes in that same path. Oops! It is supposed to exit with something...

I am rethinking the hardware bundle now. If I am going to be using a USB dongle for activation, then I am already doing some sort of hardware that will need to be shipped. Next would be an optional computer power supply and relay board all wired up for use, and might as well do an IDE cable...

Actually just ordered a trial Senselock EL STD.

I wonder if I could make something like this work: https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey ... urity-key/

I just thought of a way to lock it to a machine. I am actually doing it now when the license installs, so the basis of the code is already there. I was planning on just giving out the licenses in serial number form. But I could easily make it so the program provides a code specific to your...

So what would a tool like this be worth? I am thinking the $100-500 range. And while I may like to currently state in the license agreement that it can only be used on one computer, it will likely never have the ability to check that so I may as well say you can use it on 3 or 5 computers and...

I have a trivia question to ask. And by trivia I mean that I don’t know the answer. If a computer has 4GB of ram, that should be memory addresses from 0x00000000 to 0xffffffff, which is in the 32 bit range. So how is it possible that it can have physical memory addresses in the range of...

Speaking of bugs, I would like to get one thing out of the way now. If you system has more than 4GB of ram is it highly recommended that you use a 64 bit version of Linux. The reason for this is that I perform some crazy voodoo magic to get access to physical memory in the 32 bit range (required...

I have thought about bundling it with hardware, but that complicates things. First, I would be relying on being able to get certain hardware in quantity. Any change in hardware availability would be an issue. Second, most of that cheap Linux hardware only has one SATA port if any, and no IDE at...

Quick update: There is a reason that no one has done this before. AHCI is definitely not easy, at least not for what I am doing. I have found that different hardware can react differently. And there is no guide on how to do this, other than technical documentation. I have just now got something...

I will be very grateful for beta testers :D Initial testing will be using the menu driven scripts, probably with modified scan and clone scripts. There will be a prerequisite for testing the AHCI mode. Your version of Linux must have kernel 3.13 or newer. Ubuntu 14.04 has 3.13 (I am using...

So I just had to look up the price for DFL DDP (ouch), and during the search I found a comment about how there is the freeware ddrescue, and then the (very expensive) hardware tools. That is the gap I am hoping to fill, for a much more modest price. When I am ready (probably not any time soon)...

I want to know because I will be looking to compare my software only tool against the hardware tools. The only proper way to compare is to be able to know when certain events such as resets happen, and how effective the events are.

I have another curious question. On actual IDE drives, how often is a hard reset (pin 1 reset) beneficial? As far as I can tell there is no way to do this with software only, and would require external hardware (modified cable with relay). I am also curious if all the high price recovery...

With those percentages I think I will focus on SATA drives and AHCI for now. Progress update: I can say that I have now achieved soft resets and com resets with AHCI :D But I will also say that AHCI is more quirky then I thought, and I have many bugs to work out :?

About what percentage of current recovery cases are the older IDE PATA drives? I am curious because I have not yet worked on setting up DMA timing on a controller and wondered how important that will be. The nice thing about SATA is there seems to be no need to worry about DMA mode or settings...

Things like that are why I try to do my best to write my software to make backups. I just added scripts to HDDSuperTool the patches for mod32 and mod02 on WD drives for the slow fix, based on public information found on how to implement it. One of the first things it does is make a time stamped...

At this time I would be most interested in the drives that keep hanging. I want drives that need both soft and hard resets and even power cycles to resume. I need that so I can test how to best deal with those situations as I write the ability to process drives via AHCI, and also possibly...

My biggest issue at work would be my boss. He is difficult and stubborn, and I think a bit paranoid sometimes. I work in the same room with him and we never talk unless it is for him to tell me what he wants me to do. Plus I work for a school and there are some funny policies sometimes. I will...

Okay, I will have check with some of the local computer repair shops, at least ones within a reasonable driving distance. Maybe one of them would be helpful considering I am asking specifically for failing drives. But I do wonder about their policies for hard drive wipe/destruction. And I can’t...

And I almost forgot. The latest release of HDDSuperTool now includes a couple patches to fix the slow issue with some WD drives. This was based off information found on another forum and I only had one drive to test it on, but it did work :) I wish I could put more firmware fixes in my software...

Unfortunately I have not had much time to work on this project lately, but I have managed to achieve a basic identify device command via AHCI. And when using the method of hiding a drive from Linux as mentioned in my previous post, I am still able to work with the drive. This means that it...

I have not had much time to work on the project lately. But I did come across some interesting information that may just be the key to working with AHCI mode. It is possible to tell Linux to ignore a drive. It can be done on a temporary or more permanent basis. I tested the temporary method on a...

After taking a break from my programming and testing, I have now done a small test. I have found that it is very easy to modify an IDE cable to perform a pin 1 reset (hard reset). So I tested this on an old WD 20GB drive. The testing was crude (manually shorting wires together), but the result...

I have done some research on possible reset methods. The first thing is that for IDE drives, I have not found any way to perform a hard reset other than a power cycle. I have seen mention of a pin 1 reset to perform a hard reset, but have found nothing in any controller documentation that would...

FYI I looked into it, and the overhead is too much to do a complex cloning tool with scripting. If it even goes below reading 256 sector chunks it slows down due to the amount of time it takes to process the script lines. On the plus side, when I was experimenting I ended up finding and fixing a...

The download now has a separate executable for x64 (hddsupertoolx64).

Is your OS 32 bit or 64 bit? The executable provided only works on 32 bit. If tried on 64 bit it will either give permission errors or say it doesn't exist, I can't remember which. If so, let me know and I will build the 64 bit version later and post it. Also, are you trying to run it from a...

First is if you are in the folder where hddsupertool is, you need to add ./ in front of hddsupertool: sudo ./hddsupertool -t /dev/sdf -f ata_scan_device Second, Linux may not allow it to run as a program and will actually produce the same error. I usually fix that by right clicking on the...

The tricky part will be that I plan on targeting two separate groups. The first is those that perform data recovery on a regular basis, and may be willing to pay a decent amount for such a tool. But I also want to try to get some of those that are trying to rescue a drive with ddrescue for the...

Even the soft reset doesn't work in the passthrough, at least not in Linux. I have never got either reset to work. They just return a sense code of invalid cdb field. I don't think Linux totally follows that standard. If there is a hard reset, it would be done by accessing the pci controller...

Agree. Most drives will timeout after 2-5 seconds for an error. You would need to be below that to avoid possible device faults which would require power cycling the drive. Another reason to use 1000ms or less is to increase the speed of processing the drive. Why the hell would you want a 20-60...

It already has this ability in direct IO mode with the scripting. But the free version only allows PIO access which is obviously too slow to clone a drive. Edit: To clarify, it can perform soft resets. A hard reset is a power cycle. I don't think this can be done with a software only tool. You...

FYI Ddrescue 1.19 has an awesome algorithm. I actually helped a bit with that. With the correct settings, it can really get the most good data fast. If you choose good settings you can skip out of a bad head fast. I want my cloning tool to do this also, but that is way to complicated for a...

The scripting is very powerful. Could it do that? Actually, maybe, but I am not sure about about the overhead. I will have to think about that. And that could be a lot of work to put into making a script when I could be spending that time on the real thing. But I guess it comes down to being...

So the biggest interest right now seems to be the imaging ability using direct IO. I am very far away from implementing a proper cloning option (I want to have something that can compare to ddrescue). However, since it can be done at a somewhat basic level using the scripting, is that an...

Right now the imaging is script based. And it is very basic, and only reads in 256 sector blocks (unless you edit the script). And when using direct IO you currently only have PIO read ability. At this time is it meant more to be a utility, and something to test with. When I add true cloning...

Hddscripttool has now become HDDSuperTool. Actually that was the first name I had for it, but I did not think it was worthy of having the word “super” in it when first released. HDDSuperTool is a scriptable tool for accessing hard drives. It is still closed source, but the free version is...