ddrescue -- rescued 0 B, errsize 2199 GB, errors 1

[gsander]

Hello

I have used ddrescue in the past successfully but I am not an expert. I have some questions about my current recovery. I have a 250 GB external drive that ddrescue reports to be 2 TB. My rescue attempt has been running for about 30 hours. It shows 1 error, an errsize of 299 GB and 0 B rescued. It has been splitting failed blocks for some time now. The command I have running now is...
sudo ddrescue /dev/sdc/ /mnt/destination/dd/dd.img /mnt/destination/dd/dd.log. I have interrupted it a few times and let it start back up using the log but it continues with nothing recovered. Does anyone have a suggestion for my next step?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SilverLeaf]

If you are positive about your command syntax...correct device names, etc. (you also seem to have an unnecessary trailing "/" after /dev/sdc, possibly a typo?), it sounds like the drive may possibly be damaged to the point that it has become inaccessible by ddrescue. From your attached image, I surmise that you have three drives involved here: the drive being rescued, the drive running in the laptop, and a third drive to which the image is being saved?

To triple check your block devices names, run this command:

lsblk -o name,label,size,fstype,model

Keep in mind, with multiple drives, the names can change between reboots.

 

[gsander]

Thanks for your response,

You are correct. The trailing "/" after /dev/sdc is a typo. There are three devices 1) The damaged external 250GB drive (dev/sdc - linux sees as 2TB), 2) The 2TB external drive I am writing the image and log to (dev/sdb mounted at /mnt/destination) and 3) The laptop's internal drive I am booting to running Mint 15. Here is the output from your command...

greg@greg-Latitude-D620 ~ $ lsblk -o name,label,size,fstype,model
NAME LABEL SIZE FSTYPE MODEL
sda 74.5G FUJITSU MHV2080B
├─sda1 43.1G
├─sda2 1K
├─sda5 1013M
└─sda6 30.5G
sdb 1.8T My Book 1140
└─sdb1 1.8T
sdc 2T
sr0 1024M CDRW/DVD TSL462C

Thanks

 

[SilverLeaf]

Given that lsblk doesn't list any partitions, filesystem, or any other info for /dev/sdc, I would presume that recovery is beyond the capacity of ddrescue at this point. If it was just a corrupt partition table, then ddrescue should still be able to clone the whole device...at which point you would have to attempt to recreate the partition table on the clone to access the data. Maybe one of the data recovery pros will chime in with some advice, but I suspect that if the data is important, you may be sending this one out to a pro.

 

[gsander]

Yes it may be beyond ddrescue. My customer wants the data but not at the cost of a real data recovery pro so I can keep trying. I hold out hope someone has an idea. Some things that have crossed my mind are 1) Try a different flavor of linux and see if it sees the drive better. 2) Maybe try to mount the bad drive if possible first. 3) Run ddrescue in reverse mode. Maybe that or another idea that pops up will help. At worst I'll learn something for next time.

If someone has another idea I would appreciate hearing it. If I am able to recover something I'll post it.

Otherwise - thanks Silverleaf for your help !!

 

[Larry Sabo]

How are you connecting to the MyBook, using the USB cable? It would be better to connect using a SATA connection after modifying the PCB, or by using a compatible SATA board with the same encryption chip. You probably have to transfer U12 to the SATA board if you go that route, assuming it has one. Sometimes the adaptives (drive-unique parameters required for stable access to the drive heads) are in the PCB MCU (microcontroller) rather than U12.

 

[phaZed]

First, Try Unplugging the power to the drive.. Sometimes the drives PCB goes haywire when it encounters a physical error and stops giving out data. If you have done that, Have you tried "-R" to read the data in reverse or tried "-i" to change the input start position to be a few hundred MBs past the error?

 

[gsander]

I have tried -R but not -i. That sounds like a good idea but I don't know enough about the start position to move a few hundred MBs past the error. Can you tell me the command for that?

Thanks

 

[phaZed]

Sure, try "sudo ddrescue - i 'xxx'mb /dev/sdc/ /mnt/destination/dd/dd.img /mnt/destination/dd/dd.log"

Where "xxx" is the last reported "ipos" in the ddrescue terminal + 200mb. Be sure to add "mb" to the end to tell ddrescue the unit you mean (other options laid out in ddrescue --help)

So if the last ipos was 125000MB then it would read:
"sudo ddrescue - i 125200mb /dev/sdc/ /mnt/destination/dd/dd.img /mnt/destination/dd/dd.log"

I also forgot to mention that I also use "-d" for direct mode which bypasses caching on the controller and can help for physically bad drives.

 

[AlaDes]

One thing you can try is to just clone the drive to another drive of equal size or preferably bigger. I had a similar issue recently where ddrescue just would do an image at all but did a clone just fine. Also, based on the risks your customer is willing to take, you might try running hdd regenerator on the drive to see if it can help the recovery process a little. I've had to go the hdd regenerator rouge a couple times myself and have had nothing but positive results, although I don't rely on it.

 

[gsander]

I am not familiar with hdd regenerator. I'm looking online (http://hddregenerator.net/) and it looks like a Windows utility that costs $100. I don't think it will work because Windows does not see it at all. I need to read more about it to see if I'm right about that.

Good idea to try a disk clone. I'll give that a shot and post the results. Thanks for the options.

 

[lcoughey]

How much did a data recovery professional quote?

 

[AlaDes]

I am not familiar with hdd regenerator. I'm looking online (http://hddregenerator.net/) and it looks like a Windows utility that costs $100. I don't think it will work because Windows does not see it at all. I need to read more about it to see if I'm right about that.

Good idea to try a disk clone. I'll give that a shot and post the results. Thanks for the options.

When I mentioned cloning the drive in my previous post, I forgot to mention to do it using ddrescue.

Also, hdd regenerator can be used inside windows, but the preferred usage is a bootable cd or usb drive.

 

[gsander]

Actually I just assumed it would be too much for my customer. I am curious about the actual cost but I don't' know it.

 

[gsander]

AlaDes, I did assume you meant ddrescue cloning. I have been running a clone since a few hours after you suggested it. Unfortunately, the results are the same - ddrescue and linux show a single 2TB error even though the drive is 250 GB and it has recovered nothing.

I'm not confident enough on hdd regenerator working since Windows does not see the drive and linux only sort of sees it. If I was more confident I would buy it. I do see they have a trial version that recovers the first sector or something. Maybe I will see if that works.

Thanks again.

 

[gsander]

phaZed,

I did want to let you know that I tried your suggestion of changing the input start position. I also tried it in direct mode and reverse. Nothing has worked so far.

Thanks anyway.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Actually I just assumed it would be too much for my customer. I am curious about the actual cost but I don't' know it.

Just some friendly advice. Making assumptions about what is important to your customers and what they are willing to spend can be problematic. You could be leaving a lot of money on the table.....or worse, in the case of important data.

 

[TimJacobs]

Actually I just assumed it would be too much for my customer. I am curious about the actual cost but I don't' know it.

Here is the Question.

What is your time worth and how long have to spent trying to work on it?

Why waste your time on it when you can send it to a professional. 300DDR Does most data recovery for $300. If I were you, I would contact him and get some professional advice before you totally screw up the drive (if it isn't already).

 

[gsander]

TimJacobs, I have to admit that I would prefer to do it myself but... not at the expense of breaking things or otherwise keeping the recovered data out of my customers hands. I contacted my customer and (I think) we are sending it to 300DDR. I was not aware that professional data recovery was available at that price. I have not heard of that company so I am going on a fellow Technibble member recommendation. Thanks Hope it works.

 

[SilverLeaf]

I have no personal experience with 300DDR, so I can't really comment there. But, Luke (lcoughey on TN) from Recovery Force has been gracious enough to help me out in the past, and I wouldn't have any reservations sending him something that is beyond my capabilities to recover.