ddrescue: When to stop?

[Galdorf]

I had a customer ask if it was possible to recover data from something that looked like this lol:

 

[FlatlineBB]

@Galdorf I hope you quoted him a cool $1 million

 

[nextechinc]

I bought a rapidspar a while back and it certainly is valuable. But when ddrescue was all I had, ddrutility was incredibly useful. It reads the NFTS MFT and produces a log file that lets you focus on the blocks that contain useful data. In your case, odds are that the platter with the dead head contained some of the MFT, but in most cases you can use it and dramatically increase your chances of a full recovery.

 

[FlatlineBB]

I bought a rapidspar a while back and it certainly is valuable. But when ddrescue was all I had, ddrutility was incredibly useful. ...

Thank you @nextechinc, that's useful information. I was not familiar with that tool. I will try it next time.