Re: [Bug-ddrescue] Disc or partition?

[Ariel]

On Thu, 3 Aug 2006, David P James wrote:

> On Thu 3 August 2006 13:06, Ariel wrote:

> > You wrote that fdisk can't read the partition table, yet you mention
> > hdb1 and hdb5?

> I know the partition structure from memory (one primary and one logical
> in extended), not from fdisk, which cannot read what I know to [have]
> be[en] there. I hope that clears that up.

Yes, you don't actually have hdb1, and hdb5. So go with my advice here:

> > However, if linux can't read the partition table of hdb, then you
> > have no choice, but to copy the entire disk. Then later run a tool
> > that will attempt to rescue your partition, by searching the disk for
> > 'start of filesystem'.

> Linux cannot read the partition table at all of hdb (only 'hdb' shows up
> in cat /proc/partitions and that's giving funny numbers, the equivalent
> of something like 137 GB total).
....
> disk, or should the new disk be left blank and the creation of
> partitions to be handled (hopefully) by a rescue tool after the fact?

Yes.

This one:

> ddrescue [options] /dev/hdb /dev/hdc rescue.log ?

VERY IMPORTANT: zero out hdc first!!!!!!

If you leave any data on hdc, then any tools you run will 'see' that old 
data and get very confused.

Many people recommend using a disk-image, rather then a partition, or disk, 
for this reason.

And good luck with the recovery.

> I suspect the data on the disk may be completely unrecoverable but I'd
> like to rule it out completely before doing a partial restore from an 8
> month old image (of C: drive only).

Sorry to hear that, data losses really suck, it happened to me, but I was 
able to recover about 90%.

        -Ariel