HFultzjr
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 907
- Location
- Central PA, USA
Ok, here goes nothing!
I've put together a "Guide" for anyone who would like to start using ddrescue.
Ok, a couple of things first........
This is for BEGINNERS (those who have no understanding of Linux).
This uses ddrescue not dd_rescue....they are two different programs
This is just the very basics to get you started. More commands may be added later.
I AM NOT PROFICIENT WITH LINUX!
I suck at writing guides, grammer and spelling!
I am not responsible for any lost data...I do not suggest trying to learn it with customer's data.
I probably won't be much help with questions, as I'm still learning this. But I'm sure others can be of help.
Please look at the following link. It is where most of my guide is based on. LOOK AT IT FIRST....the "guide" will make much more sense.
http://www.myfixlog.com/fix.php?fid=21
Ok, here goes...........
Idiot's Guide To ddrescue
Items Needed:
Computer with bad hard drive
Latest version of Parted Magic (08/01/2013) ISO burned to bootable CD
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/parted_magic.html
USB drive larger than the partition you are trying to recover with one large NTFS formatted partition of the entire drive
Procedure #1:
Boot Parted Magic CD
Select 1st boot option (or others if needed)
After booting, you will be presented with the Parted Magic Desktop
Run the Disk Health icon located on the desktop
This will run g-smart control which can be used to determine if your drive is bad
After drive is determined bad proceed to Procedure #2
Procedure #2:
Plug in USB drive
On bottom left of desktop, you will see 4 icons. Hover your mouse over them and open the one called Parted Magic Mount. This will open a window that will show the status of your drives and partitions, mounted or unmounted. Note the names of the Drives/Partitions in the left column. Make sure all Drives/Partitions are showing Green Button Mount (this means it is unmounted), except your USB drive which should be Red Button Unmounted, (this means it is mounted).
You can determine which partition you want to recover from the left side of Parted Magic Mount by looking at the partition sizes. No need to worry about the NTFS or FAT32 formats. It should work with all of them.
Be careful, this is the only part that may be a little confusing if the computer has multiple drives attached. MAKE SURE YOU USE THE CORRECT DRIVE/PARTITION names, or you may lose (overwrite) your data. You may now leave this window open and drag it off to the side for future reference.
On bottom left of desktop, you will see 4 icons. Hover your mouse over them and open the one called ROXTerm. This is where we will run ddrescue from. Position this window and the Parted Magic Mount window so both can be viewed.
Type ddrescue in the terminal window. It should say:
root@partedmagic:~= ddrescue
You should only need to type ddrescue to achieve this. After you type ddrescue, type space /dev/the name of the partion you want to recover. You should have something like this:
root@partedmagic:~= ddrescue /dev/sda2
sda2 will be replaced with the name of the partition you are trying to recover......sda1, sda2, sdb1, sdb2, etc.
After this we will type the parameters for where we are rescuing the data to (our USB drive). However, when we do this, we must change the name of our USB drive from "dev" to "media", when we put in the parameters. We will also be naming our backup image. In my case I used backup.img.
You will be adding something like:
/media/sdf1/backup.img
sdf1 will be replaced with what your USB drive show in Parted Magic Mount window
You should now have something like:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img
Note the space between ddrescue and /dev/sda2. Also note the space between /dev/sda2 and /media/sdf1/backup.img
After adding another space, we will now be adding a log file in the format of our USB drive:
/media/sdf1/logfile.txt
You should now have:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img /media/sdf1/logfile.txt
Note the 3 spaces needed:
One after root@partedmagic:~ddrescue
One after root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2
One after root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img
Here they are with the spaces noted:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue^/dev/sda2^/media/sdf1/backup.img^/media/sdf1/logfile.txt
Now, just press enter and watch ddrescue do it's work
If you get an error, it is more than likely you have the spaces wrong
If you want to interrupt, press: Ctrl-C
You can then restart by using the EXACT same parameters and it should pick-up where it left off:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img /media/sdf1/logfile.txt
When you are done, you must unmount your USB drive by clicking the Red unmount button
You may then exit the program and remove the USB drive after shutdown
You may then mount and view your .img file in a program such as: OSF Mount
http://www.osforensics.com/tools/mount-disk-images.html
I hope this helps someone......make sure you review the link at the beginng of this post...it puts things in perspective better than I can.
I've put together a "Guide" for anyone who would like to start using ddrescue.
Ok, a couple of things first........
This is for BEGINNERS (those who have no understanding of Linux).
This uses ddrescue not dd_rescue....they are two different programs
This is just the very basics to get you started. More commands may be added later.
I AM NOT PROFICIENT WITH LINUX!
I suck at writing guides, grammer and spelling!
I am not responsible for any lost data...I do not suggest trying to learn it with customer's data.
I probably won't be much help with questions, as I'm still learning this. But I'm sure others can be of help.
Please look at the following link. It is where most of my guide is based on. LOOK AT IT FIRST....the "guide" will make much more sense.
http://www.myfixlog.com/fix.php?fid=21
Ok, here goes...........
Idiot's Guide To ddrescue
Items Needed:
Computer with bad hard drive
Latest version of Parted Magic (08/01/2013) ISO burned to bootable CD
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/parted_magic.html
USB drive larger than the partition you are trying to recover with one large NTFS formatted partition of the entire drive
Procedure #1:
Boot Parted Magic CD
Select 1st boot option (or others if needed)
After booting, you will be presented with the Parted Magic Desktop
Run the Disk Health icon located on the desktop
This will run g-smart control which can be used to determine if your drive is bad
After drive is determined bad proceed to Procedure #2
Procedure #2:
Plug in USB drive
On bottom left of desktop, you will see 4 icons. Hover your mouse over them and open the one called Parted Magic Mount. This will open a window that will show the status of your drives and partitions, mounted or unmounted. Note the names of the Drives/Partitions in the left column. Make sure all Drives/Partitions are showing Green Button Mount (this means it is unmounted), except your USB drive which should be Red Button Unmounted, (this means it is mounted).
You can determine which partition you want to recover from the left side of Parted Magic Mount by looking at the partition sizes. No need to worry about the NTFS or FAT32 formats. It should work with all of them.
Be careful, this is the only part that may be a little confusing if the computer has multiple drives attached. MAKE SURE YOU USE THE CORRECT DRIVE/PARTITION names, or you may lose (overwrite) your data. You may now leave this window open and drag it off to the side for future reference.
On bottom left of desktop, you will see 4 icons. Hover your mouse over them and open the one called ROXTerm. This is where we will run ddrescue from. Position this window and the Parted Magic Mount window so both can be viewed.
Type ddrescue in the terminal window. It should say:
root@partedmagic:~= ddrescue
You should only need to type ddrescue to achieve this. After you type ddrescue, type space /dev/the name of the partion you want to recover. You should have something like this:
root@partedmagic:~= ddrescue /dev/sda2
sda2 will be replaced with the name of the partition you are trying to recover......sda1, sda2, sdb1, sdb2, etc.
After this we will type the parameters for where we are rescuing the data to (our USB drive). However, when we do this, we must change the name of our USB drive from "dev" to "media", when we put in the parameters. We will also be naming our backup image. In my case I used backup.img.
You will be adding something like:
/media/sdf1/backup.img
sdf1 will be replaced with what your USB drive show in Parted Magic Mount window
You should now have something like:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img
Note the space between ddrescue and /dev/sda2. Also note the space between /dev/sda2 and /media/sdf1/backup.img
After adding another space, we will now be adding a log file in the format of our USB drive:
/media/sdf1/logfile.txt
You should now have:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img /media/sdf1/logfile.txt
Note the 3 spaces needed:
One after root@partedmagic:~ddrescue
One after root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2
One after root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img
Here they are with the spaces noted:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue^/dev/sda2^/media/sdf1/backup.img^/media/sdf1/logfile.txt
Now, just press enter and watch ddrescue do it's work
If you get an error, it is more than likely you have the spaces wrong
If you want to interrupt, press: Ctrl-C
You can then restart by using the EXACT same parameters and it should pick-up where it left off:
root@partedmagic:~ddrescue /dev/sda2 /media/sdf1/backup.img /media/sdf1/logfile.txt
When you are done, you must unmount your USB drive by clicking the Red unmount button
You may then exit the program and remove the USB drive after shutdown
You may then mount and view your .img file in a program such as: OSF Mount
http://www.osforensics.com/tools/mount-disk-images.html
I hope this helps someone......make sure you review the link at the beginng of this post...it puts things in perspective better than I can.
Last edited:
