How to Clone a Hard Drive With Bad Sectors Using ddrescue

[RolandJS]

I recommend the existing good hard-drives and all good partitions have unique names. That way, regardless of usb or dvd or internal boot -- one always knows which hard-drive(s) and which partitions not to touch. Believe me, an end-user does not always remember the drive letters have been shuffled especially via any usb or dvd boot. It's too easy to "aim" at the wrong item.

 

[RolandJS]

Have learned new things, great post!
A question: some data recovery software claim that they can read and extract data from bad sectors. Is that true?

I read elsewhere an article concerning Spinrite [and other similar products] should not be used for data recovery, such are not data recovery utilities, they are at best -- hardware head re-aligners, sector scrubbers [returning logical bad sectors into the use-pool]. Sorry about my phrasing, I need another cup of coffee.

 

[vi.víssima]

Hi I'm new in Linux and I follow the steps, did the usb with I think 10 different version of linux BUT when I try the command "sudo apt-get install hwinfo", I receive the error saying "Package hwinfo is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source"

Save me guys please!!!...

 

[lcoughey]

Hi I'm new in Linux and I follow the steps, did the usb with I think 10 different version of linux BUT when I try the command "sudo apt-get install hwinfo", I receive the error saying "Package hwinfo is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source"

Save me guys please!!!...

You can try to run the following command as an alternative to hwinfo:

>lshw --short | grep disk

 

[vi.víssima]

Hi I'm new in Linux and I follow the steps, did the usb with I think 10 different version of linux BUT when I try the command "sudo apt-get install hwinfo", I receive the error saying "Package hwinfo is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source"

Save me guys please!!!...

You can try to run the following command as an alternative to hwinfo:

>lshw --short | grep disk

THANK YOU SO MUCH WORKED

 

[lcoughey]

Hi I'm new in Linux and I follow the steps, did the usb with I think 10 different version of linux BUT when I try the command "sudo apt-get install hwinfo", I receive the error saying "Package hwinfo is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source"

Save me guys please!!!...

You can try to run the following command as an alternative to hwinfo:

>lshw --short | grep disk

THANK YOU SO MUCH WORKED

No worries...I'll send the bill to Data-Medics for providing outdated information.

 

[Jared]

It's not outdated info, just depends on what repositories your Linux distro is using. Most debian variants that I've tried do have it.

Also don't forget you need to do "sudo apt-get update" first or you won't have the full package lists downloaded.

 

[KalaDude]

Aloha ! My boot drive 2 tb (Ubuntu14.04) started showing signs of failure so I bought another 2tb drive. I used a 3rd drive with Ubuntu 16.04 to boot the machine and download gddrescue and your GUI. Then I attached the failing drive and the new drive, edited the mount options on the failing drive to read only, started your GUI, changed the settings to "Best Recovery" and let it run. 9hrs later I got the message that all the data had been recovered. Wooohoo! So I edited the mount options on the new drive back to automatic on, mount on startup and eliminated the read only restrictor. Turned off the machine detached the failing drive and 16.04 drive and tried to boot the machine with the new drive and got the BIOS error message telling me there's nothing bootable in my machine. I did some poking around and from what I understand the new drive has an image of my failing disk on it and somehow I need to convert this image to a bootable file system. How do I do that?

 

[Jared]

If you made a clone of a bootable drive, it should just boot. Unless something got messed up with your changing the mount options.

 

[jol]

What's the command you issued to clone the drive ?
I suspect you issued a command to clone it drive to file, instead of drive to drive