Recovering data from bad hard disk sectors ? (WAS: Feisty: recent updates causing freezes ??)

[Andrew Zajac]

Hi Vince, sorry about you bad luck.

> Here are a few more that might help:
>
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery


You can run those tools from the live cd, or from a rescubuntu cd
(console-only) if you are short on ram.  See rescubuntu.info.

It is important that you buy a new (bigger) hard drive or two and
*make an image* of the faulty drive before you try to correct any
filesystem problems.  Basically, image the faulty drive to a new one
using gnu-ddrescue.  Let it run for as long as it will still spit out
new data.  Put it in the fridge intermittently, as mentioned, if this
helps.

Once you have gotten all that you are going to get from the drive, try
to mount the image and see what is there.  If the filesystem is still
trashed, you can use data-carving software like foremost or photorec
to pull out files from the middle of the disk without the benefit of a
filesystem.  To do that, you will need yet another new hard drive on
which to put the saved data.

Good luck!

Az