Duplicating Bad Hard Drive

[ajak]

I have a in-accessible 120GB hard drive with bad sectors, I am
planning to try recovering the data with Spinrite
<http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm> but I don't want to recover
to the original drive, in case I corrupt the data on it. What is the
best way of duplicating the bad drive on a new, larger drive?. Is it
OK to use a larger drive, or should I use one the same size?.

(PC was set up this way when problems occurred).
HD1 is C:OS,
HD2 is DCD Drive), E20GB), F20GB), G30GB), H40GB), I10GB),
Jexternal DVD/USB writer drive).

System specs:
OS: Win. XP Pro.
File System: NTFS
MB: ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1.6
Ram: 256 Meg Crucial Memory
Primary HD: 40 GB Western Digital Caviar SE
Secondary HD: 120 GB Western Digital Caviar SE

Ajak. :roll:

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have a in-accessible 120GB hard drive with bad sectors, I am
planning to try recovering the data with Spinrite
<http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm> but I don't want to recover
to the original drive, in case I corrupt the data on it. What is the
best way of duplicating the bad drive on a new, larger drive?. Is it
OK to use a larger drive, or should I use one the same size?.

Should be o.k..

Hmmm. I would use ''dd_rescue'' to copy the original disk sector
by sector. It is specifically designed to continue on read errors.
However it is for Linux (e.g. included in Knoppix). No idea whether
there is sometihng as useful in the commercial camp...

Arno

(PC was set up this way when problems occurred).
HD1 is C:OS,
HD2 is DCD Drive), E20GB), F20GB), G30GB), H40GB), I10GB),
Jexternal DVD/USB writer drive).

 

[Joep]

Should be o.k..

Hmmm. I would use ''dd_rescue'' to copy the original disk sector
by sector. It is specifically designed to continue on read errors.
However it is for Linux (e.g. included in Knoppix). No idea whether
there is sometihng as useful in the commercial camp...

DiskPatch 2.0 (not free) can clone/copy bad disks sector by sector:
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl

 

[Michael Cecil]

DiskPatch 2.0 (not free) can clone/copy bad disks sector by sector:
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl

Joep, how does DiskPatch handle disks with a HPA set? Does it copy just
the available disk or does it do the actual physical disk?

 

[Joep]

Joep, how does DiskPatch handle disks with a HPA set? Does it copy just
the available disk or does it do the actual physical disk?

As far as I understand, if a HPA is set/present this is hidden from tools
accessing the disk using int13hx commands. So, DiskPatch can not 'reach' the
HPA, it simply will not know it is there.

 

[Michael Cecil]

As far as I understand, if a HPA is set/present this is hidden from tools
accessing the disk using int13hx commands. So, DiskPatch can not 'reach' the
HPA, it simply will not know it is there.

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

 

[Joep]

Okay, thanks for the clarification.

From one guy who started on a ZX81 to the other; you're welcome!

(well, I actually had the Times version with 16k RAM expansion module) ...
It sucked ;-)

 

[Eric Gisin]

What does inaccessible mean? If you don't see all partitions you have a major
problem.

You can clone the disk with Ghost 7/8 and the -FRO switch for bad sectors. Save
the log file.

If you had bad sectors in important files, you then run Spinrite on the
original disk.

You can also clone with diskpatch or dd, but you won't know which files had bad
sectors.

 

[Michael Cecil]

From one guy who started on a ZX81 to the other; you're welcome!

(well, I actually had the Times version with 16k RAM expansion module) ...
It sucked ;-)

Good memories. It was sure fun at the time.

 

[Joep]

You can also clone with diskpatch or dd, but you won't know which files had bad
sectors.

Tip: determining if and which files were affected by bad sectors after
cloning the disk with DiskPatch:

When DiskPatch copies a bad sector that could not be read, the sector is
filled with 512 F6h characters (÷). If a file was affected, the file will
contain a string of these characters. You can use the Windows file search
tool to identify these files.

- start the windows search tool
- in the 'text to search for' box, type the character ÷ as follows : hold
the Alt button and type 246, then release the alt button. Put at least 5 of
these characters in the search field, do not use spaces or other characters
- make sure the search tool searches all files (*.*) and that the search
includes hidden and system files
- start the search

The resulting file list contains files that are likely to be damaged. Verify
this and if necessary restore correct versions of these files.