Re: [Bug-ddrescue] Can creating an image of a hard drive cause damage?

[Paul Daniels]

In short, it can be summarised as "If the heads are physically damaged,  
_any_ spin up of the drive will cause more damage.".

This is why it's important to evaluate and decide before proceeding if 
you can spin up the drive without further damage.

ddrescue has definitely saved many, MANY lots of data over time but it's 
important to know when/where to use the right tools.



On 07/06/18 18:05, ST wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Can creating an image of failing hard drive cause damage by scratching
> the platters' surface?
>
> I once opened a hard drive that was dropped and I saw a circle scratch
> on platters. It seems that because of the mechanical shock during the
> fall the read heads got twisted and were scratching the platters while
> the drive was running. This removes the magnetic layer and obviously
> causes total data loss.
>
> Is it theoretically possible that ddrescue shows progress while creating
> an image of a dropped drive, but at the same time the heads are
> permanently damaging the drive (e.g. by scratching it)? Which means it
> is better to replace the heads instead of trying to image the disk in
> such a case?
>
> Thank you!
>
>
>
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