a bit of GNU ddrescue magic…
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
right now, i have the 750 gb seagate hooked up and doing a badblocks test.
when that finishes, i’m going to:
1. partition it into a ~345gb partition and a ~405gb partition
2. set up ext3 filesystems on both
3. GNU ddrescue the old dying data drive into an image file on the 405gb partition
4. mount the image file as a loopback device, and copy what i can to a 160gb hdd i had lying around. once i get the image’s contents down to ~320gb, i’ll copy the rest to the 345gb partition.
5. use GPartEd to delete the second partition and grow the 345gb partition to the whole drive.
here’s hoping it works with no hitches.
EDIT:
venting and frustration below. not for young eyes.
SON OF A BITCH.
the drive won’t even boot, not even after i kept it in the freezer. it spins up but i’m pretty sure the electronics controller board is fried (dear B: don’t ever let the power fluctuate down here again. if you do, give me a UPS plz. thx.).
so here’s the new game plan.
1. RMA a new drive to come with hopefully the same controller board. if it matches, swell. if not, i shell out ANOTHER ~$100 for ANOTHER drive. i hate you and your non-returnable RMA’s, Western Digital.
2. also if not, i need to send it out to a data recovery place (SIGH). this is getting expensive. don’t ever, EVER let anyone EVER tell you that redundancy and back up are not worth it. they are.
any recommendations?
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 at 15:17:39
Um as far as paying for data recovery, get a job. Its expensive cuz. On the flip side if you happen to find a cheap place let me know. I have a dead laptop hard drive that has some stuff on it I would really like to get off. Though I have not used the freezer trick yet.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 at 15:41:01
yeah, don’t tell me it’s expensive. i know. haha, we were partners with OnTrack (www.ontrackdatarecovery.com i believe) at Adopt A Tech and it was scary.
i’m not giving up yet but..i might as well start saving up.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007 at 15:43:29
also- don’t know if you knew this, but if it’s just a matter of the controller electronics on the hard drive being fried (as it probably is- the problem happened after a power outage), then if you can find another HDD the same model and revision number/level, you can switch out the controller boards without cracking the HDD itself open (which is good, because i really do not have an anti-static cleanroom).