USB HDD Recovery

[Trippy]

Hello all

 

Does anyone have any experience with recovering data from failed HDD? Either by using proprietry software or a third party supplier? I have a failed (CRC error) 1Tb Hitachi USB drive that has a load of stuff on that I would rather not lose.

 

The drive is less than a year old but my experience is they either work for ages or fail fairly soon like this one. It's under warranty so I can get an RMA replacement but obviously I'd like to recover what I can before sending it back.

 

Any advice/previous experiences gratefully received :)

[Synapse]

Windows software probably won't recover it with cyclic redundancy errors.

 

A good bet is to use the live Knoppix CD (DVD not needed), attempt to mount the drive and copy the data.

 

If that process becomes tedious, you could get another drive, same capacity or higher and use dd_rescue, built into the Knoppix CD to image your drive to a new one.

 

Advantage over Windows is that each time a crc error is encountered the disk controller is reset, a null, or zero is written to the image and it carries on with the next block of data.

 

Cheaper than a professional recovery company ( about £600 cheaper).

[Plastic Nev]

Just so I get a better understanding is this drive an external drive or the main drive in the machine?

If external and has failed where data cannot be recovered, the answer regarding the Knoppix CD does hold a good deal of promise.

If however it is an internal drive and even the main drive in the computer, you may first need to remove it physically if it cannot boot into anything, then using a USB adapter lead connect it to another computer as an external drive, you may get what data you need without resorting to the Knoppix method.

A lot depends on what damage has occurred to the drive.

For info and download of Knoppix look here-

KNOPPIX - Live Linux Filesystem On CD

You can navigate to a download mirror from there, and also various links on the page to FAQ lists and even a discussion forum.

Nev.

[Trippy]

Hi Nev

The unit is an external 1Tb USB Hitachi Simple Drive. As I mentioned it's under warranty and will be replaced but I would like to recover whatever I can from the disk.

 

The irony is that it is (was :( ) a backup drive. I had backed up a load of files including the 'windows.old' folder generated when installing W7 when I upgraded one of my family desktop units. "I must get around to restoring that soon in case anything goes wrong" I thought. I was 'going to' select what I wanted to keep and copy it back to the internal drives.

 

I didn't do it quickly enough. I know at my age I should know better (and have more than one copy) but I didn't and now I may pay the price.

 

Lesson here is to backup your backups. My excuse was that I didn't have the time. It's going to cost me a lot more time and probably money to get this back now.

[Dalo Harkin]

I know this is in hindsight, but never use anything for backup that is mechanical unless its backed up more than once spanned over a few drives...

 

for anything else use media such as DVD-R or blueray depending on size

[Trippy]

Absolutely right DH! I have my daughter's GCSE stuff in four different places, just not mine................

 

Got caught out being complacent and not doing what I tell others to do! I have some of the files on DVD but not all.

 

My favourite line is "the only certain thing about a hard drive is that it will eventually fail" although in my experience they either go pop in the first few hours of operation, or last until you need something bigger!

[Dalo Harkin]

Depending on the size of your home network and PCs, if you have some old kit knocking around you could build a WHS (Windows Home Server) im always plugging this I use one at home amongst other things and its amazing and they have just launched V2 codenamed 'vail' worth looking into if you can....

[Trippy]

Sounds interesting DH! Probably just what I need for my household. I'm off out just now (BBQ at Brother-in-Law's ) Can I pick your brains sometime please?

 

Trippy:)

[Dalo Harkin]

Yeah no problem at all - :)