Re: [Bug-ddrescue] ddrescue 1.3 - questions from a newbie

[Matt Boge]

Well, what was once a crawl has now become little more than a screeching halt.  
2 GB in 24 hours, with over 1000 errors in that time.  The rescue rate is still 
pretty awesome (42533/42666 for a 99.7% rate!), the time factor is killing me.
 
So, since it looks like I will have to reinstall Windows anyway, I have decided 
to offload the rescue process from my primary computer to an older one.  I 
assume this shouldn't be a problem if I use the same drives in the same 
configuration utilizing the log file saved on my floppy, right?  Please let me 
know as soon as possible if I'm totally wrong on this... or if you think I 
should make some sort of change to the rescue.  
 
Again, I think I'd like to get the good data moved over as quickly as possible, 
but perhaps I'm misinterpreting the problem with the drive and really shouldn't 
worry about it killing any more data.
 
Any suggestions at this point would be greatly and most appreciatively welcomed!
 
Thanks,
Matt
 
PS.  I think I'd like to consider creating multiple partitions in my new setup 
(two 400GB drives that I will be setting up with RAID0).  I'd install Windows 
XP on one partition and I think I'd like to install a Linux variant on the 
other to play around with and get more familiar with this OS (hey, an old dog 
can ALWAYS learn new tricks, right?).  Any suggestions on how I should do this 
and which variant of Linux I should install?
 
 


----- Original Message ----
From: Matt Boge <address@hidden>
To: "DePriest, Jason R." <address@hidden>
Cc: address@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 11:35:28 AM
Subject: Re: [Bug-ddrescue] ddrescue 1.3 - questions from a newbie


Thanks Jason.

Yea, the recovery is the most important thing at this point. This is my primary 
computer, so it would be nice to be up and running quickly... but from what 
I've learned in the last few days, this isn't a quick process and if i want my 
data back, I'll have to wait.

I guess I was more concerned with the failing drive getting worse as the 
process goes along... working so hard on rescuing the errors while good data 
sits there waiting to be copied.  I'm afraid the drive will kick the bucket 
before it gets to the good data.

My experience here is thin, so I'm not sure if this is a legitimate worry or 
not.  If it's the write-heads that are the culprit, then I suppose I shouldn't 
worry about it as ddrescue is simply reading from the drive, right?  My drive 
isn't "clicking" as I've heard it described elsewhere, but the drive has always 
been a little noisy when seeking and doing the nightly maintenance (i.e. virus 
scans, defrag, etc....) so I'm not really sure what went wrong. Incidentally, I 
purchased a new HD a few weeks ago to replace this drive because the noise was 
annoying for guests that were sleeping in my computer room.  Of course, before 
I had a chance to swap drives, this one failed... ugh.

Anyway, I will use this time to study up a little more on HDs and they way they 
store data... it's very interesting.  When all of this is done, I plan to 
install two Seagate SATA drives with RAID 0 (data striping) and look to 
establish a regular backup routine so I won't have to go through this again. 
I'm considering several options... from setting up an external drive (perhaps 
one that supports network access, so I can also backup my laptop and kids' 
computer) to subscribing to one of the many "online" backup services.  Any 
suggestions or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again.
- Matt


----- Original Message ----
From: "DePriest, Jason R." <address@hidden>
To: Matt Boge <address@hidden>
Cc: Ariel <address@hidden>; address@hidden
Sent: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 11:04:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Bug-ddrescue] ddrescue 1.3 - questions from a newbie


On 1/9/07, Matt Boge  wrote:
> Yikes... I guess I spoke too soon.  12 hours ago I was encouraged by the 
> speed pickup (ipos:38152 MiB), but now we have slowed to a crawl (ipos: 39548 
> MiB).
>

I had a 20 GB drive go bad on me and it took about 72 hours to get a
full image.  It didn't even have that many bad places, but it was
unbootable and unmountable (as a readable filesystem).

So, don't worry too much about the time if you time is all you have.

I had this drive sitting around for over two years before I was able
to recover anything from it.


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