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[quinnlaup]

Hi all,

Iam looking for a tutorial/help using dd_rescue. I have done some research on using this utility but i am not 100% sure as to how it works. For example what linux distro works best, is the utility included or does it have to be "installed". Please excuse my ignorance on this subject and if possible explain "really slowly" how make this utility work successfully.

thanks in advance

quinnlaup

[Britec]

Copying files from damaged hard disks

dd_rescue has the ability to copy almost everything off a damaged hard drive relatively quickly. There is a helper utility (dd_rhelp) to assist in the process. dd_rescue requires a linux platform. I use the RIP (Rescue is Possible) CD.

Here are the steps:

1. Download the RIP ISO and burn a CD from it. Available from here.
Note: This is now obsolete as most distributions of Knoppix have dd_rescue

2. Set your computer to boot from the CD drive. Configure your hard drives appropriately. Important: Be very careful to never boot into Windows with TiVo drives attached! Boot only into the RIP CD.

3. When the welcome screen comes on, select "Boot Linux rescue system [skip keymap prompt]" then login as "root."

4. Enter "cd /usr/bin"

5. Enter "dd_rescue -B 1b -b 2M -A -v -l /var/dd_rescue.log /dev/hd{old} /dev/hd{new} ."
For the truly uninitiated:

/dev/hda is Primary Master drive
/dev/hdb is Primary Slave drive
/dev/hdc is Secondary Master drive
/dev/hdd is Secondary Slave drive

6. The log file should be gzip'd and copied to a floppy before rebooting, as the /var directory will go away.

That's it. The copying should go very quickly until it hits a bad sector and then it will slow down to take smaller chunks of data. Your get very good results with this technique.

More Information about dd_rhelp can be found here. dd_rescue can be found here

[quinnlaup]

@Britec  

Thanks for your help on this one, i was just wondering does it matter if the hard drives are sata ? and is there anyway to identify which hard drive is which ? the last thing i want to do is image the new drive onto the old one. Also am i right in thinking that this utility can reverse image the drive ? One more thing am i right in thinking that in your reply above i remove the words  "old" and "new"  (dev/hd{old} /dev/hd{new}) and substitute the dev letter ie "abc or d"

regards

quinnlaup

[Britec]

  quinnlaup

You can tell if the drive is Sata or IDE by opening the case and looking at the drive, if it has a big ribbon on the drive its a IDE

Here is some more info on dd_rescuethis should help you understand it better.

http://paulski.com/zpages.php?id=1913

http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Dd_rescue

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Dd_rescue

http://www.freehackers.org/Hard_Disk_Recover_2


More downloads

http://packages.sw.be/dd_rescue/

[quinnlaup]

  Britec

I know its been a while since i started this post but i was just wondering, i have Ubuntu 10.04 installed on a pc from my research i know i can run dd_rescue using ubuntu but i was wondering if i can use the "switches" you included " -B 1b -b 2M -A -v -l " . I was also wondering if it would be better to use dd_rhelp as it plots a path through the drive my only concern about using it is how will i know when it has finished copying data from good sectors presumably the rate of copying will slow down? Finally i noticed that when using both dd_rescue and dd_rhelp the image has to be both checked for consistency and mounted in order to access the data is this also the case when using the RIP distro ?

As always thanks in advance for your help and time

quinnlaup