1st time trying Pmagic ddrescue GUI

[HFultzjr]

I've used ddrescue with manual commands and success before, but wanted to try something new.
I just used Pmagic with the ddrescue GUI.
Not nearly all the options, but worked for a laptop drive another shop said was dead.
Customer did not want to pay for professional recovery, but would pay a diagnostics fee to see if I could get anything.
Yes, I warned her about all the pitfalls of rookie data recovery and she said go for it.
Made a .img of the (C) partition with logfile and recovered 99.98%
Mounted .img within the ddrescue GUI and recovered all the files she needed.
Took about 40 hours of various runs, just let it sitting in the background grinding away.
Very happy NEW customer.
Has anybody else used the GUI version?
Very easy to use and seems to work well.
Suggest you give it a try on unimportant drives.

 

[Diggs]

I use the GUI version all the time running under Mint Mate. As soon as a drive won't image in Windows or FABs fails due to drive issues I run ddresue on it. I don't use an image file but clone to another disk of the same size. I usually leave it set at the default values of two passes. I have stopped mid-run and resumed several times with no issues.

 

[SAFCasper]

Pmagic + ddrescue GUI has been my standard go-to for data recovery for years now. If the recovered image is too damage to mount then I run it through R-Studio.

Sounds like we operate quite similar in this regard. We don't advertise data recovery services and always advise professional services first if the data is mission critical. However, if the client is willing to take that risk we will give it a shot.

 

[glennd]

I've always used the command line to an image. If the gui can mount it's own image then that would be a valuable thing to have.

 

[Diggs]

I've always used the command line to an image. If the gui can mount it's own image then that would be a valuable thing to have.

Either disk or image ddrescue GUI offers to mount the result after every run.

 

[Porthos]

Customer did not want to pay for professional recovery, but would pay a diagnostics fee to see if I could get anything.
Yes, I warned her about all the pitfalls of rookie data recovery and she said go for it.
Made a .img of the (C) partition with logfile and recovered 99.98%
Mounted .img within the ddrescue GUI and recovered all the files she needed.
Took about 40 hours of various runs, just let it sitting in the background grinding away.
Very happy NEW customer.

Did you end up charging more than your diagnostic fee for the job since you were able to get data?

 

[HFultzjr]

I've always used the command line to an image. If the gui can mount it's own image then that would be a valuable thing to have.

It can mount the .img right from the program. Really nice feature.

 

[HFultzjr]

Did you end up charging more than your diagnostic fee for the job since you were able to get data?

Yes, customer paid more than diagnostics and I gained a new customer with lots of referrals.

 

[Diggs]

Lately I've been seeing about 2/3s (~66%) of the drives I'm switching to SSDs fail to image. Since I work residential I suppose it's to be expected with all the laptops being banged about. Some may pass FABS yet fail a complete image. These failed drives immediately go onto a Linux machine (Mint Mate or xfce) and have ddrescue clone them to another same-size drive. It's that drive that I'll work with for windows imaging and customer data. I have quit going back to the customer and asking for more money for the ddrescue recovery operations. It feels wrong to me. We agreed on a price and it's up to me to deliver at that price. Telling them their drive has problems now and I want more money appears as bait-and-switch to me and rubs me wrong. In turn, what do I care if their drive sits on an old unattended Linux machine while I do other work, eat or leave on service calls. It's ready to continue when I am. Sure, I used to take screenies of CrystalDisk Info and send them to the customer to justify the price increase but I never liked it. Now I just don't anymore and feel much better about it all.