0

A 1TB NTFS-formatted disk on my Windows 10 machine started crapping out.

Following advice in other questions, I downloaded a System Rescue CD ISO, booted from it and ran ddrescue as suggested here to copy the data to a different drive of the same size.

The first step was running ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdd /dev/sdb rescue.log overnight.
Unfortunately, the speed keept deteriorating and after finishing 93%, ddrescue claims that completing the rest of the first pass will take 45 days. And that is not taking into account the further passes.

While I would like to get as many files as possible (intact!) from the drive, I'd rather have less files now than more in two month. Furthermore, while the recovery process is running, I cannot use my (Windows) computer for anything else.

What is the best way to recover as many files as possible within a reasonable period of time (a couple of days)? Can I "fix" the 93% copied drive to make it work in Windows? Will a regular chkdsk /f work?

I also consider trying to do a file-level copy from the failing drive, and then "topping up" from the rescued one. That way I know that the files that were successfully copied are not corrupt. Is there a utility that copies files quickly, skipping errors? I read somewhere that robocopy gets stuck on errors even with the /r:0 /w:0 switches.

Edit: Now it shows 142 days. And the failing disk no longer seems to be readable.

Alex O
  • 595
  • 1
  • 6
  • 19
  • with 93% complete it should show up in windows. Your missing 72gb of data, but some of that could be free space. You will need to open and view the files you recovered to verify that chunks of the files are not missing or corrupt. – cybernard Apr 18 '18 at 21:47
  • 1
    You can stop and resume ddrescue. So you can go check it out and try again later. – HackSlash Apr 18 '18 at 21:58
  • https://superuser.com/questions/431815/how-to-resume-ddrescue-process – HackSlash Apr 18 '18 at 21:58
  • [Using `ddrescue` to recover a broken drive. Can I check the progress before the run is complete?](https://superuser.com/q/1090620/432690) – Kamil Maciorowski Apr 19 '18 at 05:41
  • “I cannot use my (Windows) computer for anything else.” Well, if you care about your data you absolutely do not try to use a drive that is so badly damaged. First recover the data, then throw the drive away. Do not use it anymore. – Andrea Lazzarotto Apr 19 '18 at 10:26
  • See also this for what to do after you have cloned it: https://superuser.com/a/1165578/278831 – Andrea Lazzarotto Apr 19 '18 at 10:27
  • Well, the recovered drive was recognized by Windows and all the files on it could be read. I guess the only danger is internal corruption of files (from original bad blocks) but I don't know how to detect that. Thank you for your comments. – Alex O Apr 20 '18 at 00:15

0 Answers0