Help with gddrescue

[Patch22]

Hi,

I have had difficulty restoring images created using gddrescue on Linux Mint. On completion of imaging/cloning, ddrescue image files can be seen on the backup drive, rather than the data on the original drive. I am then unable to mount the images in Linux or restore the image to another drive. Restoring using ddrescue just copies the image files again. Can anyone point out what I am doing wrong?

To clone a drive, I would use a command similar to the following:

sudo ddrescue -v /dev/sdc3 /dev/sdb1 logfile

Many thanks.

 

[rjframe]

You're only cloning the partition.
I don't know that it's strictly necessary, but I always unmount the source drive first (assuming Mint auto-mounted it for you), so use something like this:

# umount /dev/sdc1 (and sdc2, 3, etc)
# ddrescue -dv /dev/sdc /dev/sdb logfile

EDIT:

If you only want to copy a partition for a backup, write it as a file on an existing filesystem instead of to a device.

# ddrescue -dv /dev/sdc3 /some/dir/sdc3_img logfile
# mkdir /mnt/tmp
# mount /some/dir/sdc3_img /mnt/tmp

Your problem is that you're copying the partition, but not the master boot record that contains the partition information, so Linux doesn't know how to mount the copy.

 

[Patch22]

I did get to the point of creating an image file myself, but agaim found this un-mountable. I will try again using your commands and report back, many thanks.

 

[Patch22]

You're only cloning the partition.
I don't know that it's strictly necessary, but I always unmount the source drive first (assuming Mint auto-mounted it for you), so use something like this:

# umount /dev/sdc1 (and sdc2, 3, etc)
# ddrescue -dv /dev/sdc /dev/sdb logfile

EDIT:

If you only want to copy a partition for a backup, write it as a file on an existing filesystem instead of to a device.

# ddrescue -dv /dev/sdc3 /some/dir/sdc3_img logfile
# mkdir /mnt/tmp
# mount /some/dir/sdc3_img /mnt/tmp

Your problem is that you're copying the partition, but not the master boot record that contains the partition information, so Linux doesn't know how to mount the copy.

Hi,

So I have another hard drive in I need to clone ASAP. I tried the command:

sudo ddrescue -dv /dev/sdc1 /media/Data/sdc1_img logfile

ddrescue starts and then immediately completes without copying successfully. Is this to do with cluster size and using the -d switch?

Really struggling with this program and Linux at the moment. Many thanks for any help.

 

[codegreen]

Have you tried it without using -d (direct access)? Also, your command would image only the first partition, not the entire disk.

If you could post the output or exact error messages from ddrescue, it would make it easier to help.

 

[coffee]

Hi,

So I have another hard drive in I need to clone ASAP. I tried the command:

sudo ddrescue -dv /dev/sdc1 /media/Data/sdc1_img logfile

ddrescue starts and then immediately completes without copying successfully. Is this to do with cluster size and using the -d switch?

Really struggling with this program and Linux at the moment. Many thanks for any help.

Why dont you just download the iso for clonezilla and copy the partitions from the source drive to the target drive and be done with it. Obviously the program your using is not meeting your needs. Clonezilla will do this and all you have to do is mostly select the default settings and choose disk-to-disk copy.

If the target disk is a larger disk then after the cloning and successful boot of the target disk you can go in and expand your windows partition.

Should not be that hard.

Best Regards,

coffee

 

[Patch22]

ddrescue

Sorry for delay in coming back..been busy with other work

Why dont you just download the iso for clonezilla and copy the partitions from the source drive to the target drive and be done with it. Obviously the program your using is not meeting your needs. Clonezilla will do this and all you have to do is mostly select the default settings and choose disk-to-disk copy.

I did in the end use Clonezilla to backup the particular partition in question, but I am not a huge fan of Clonezilla. The interface is clunky and the whole cloning process takes an age. I wanted to use ddrescue as it is able to continue to backup even when bad reads are encountered. Clonezilla has an option with this functionality but it has never worked for me.

 

[Patch22]

Have you tried it without using -d (direct access)? Also, your command would image only the first partition, not the entire disk.

If you could post the output or exact error messages from ddrescue, it would make it easier to help.

I did initially try without the -d. I will have another go soon and post the exact output.

 

[arrow_runner]

The first time I ran ddrescue I had the same problem. I couldn't mount the image file because it was the whole drive and not the partition. If you can't select just the partition then take the image file you made and use the 'dd' command and send it to a whole drive. Just make sure you don't need anything on the destination drive because it will get wiped.

 

[Rob_NNCC]

I always clone the whole drive, and I almost always dump not as an image but as a clone. by ddrescue /dev/sdb /dev/sdc --force

That way, I can then just take the drive and slave it to the clients pc or run a chkdsk on a windows pc. It is still possible to mount one of these images too.