Score:0

Fastest way to copy data from physically damaged hdd hard drive

cn flag

I have a HDD hard drive that fell down. I am still able to mount it and read datas from it; everything is where it was left. Thing is, reading data from it seems exceedingly slow; as safety, I want to transfer the datas on a new hard drive.

The problem is, with a basic cp command, it seems to be taking ages (I have about 1To of data to copy, and copied only 1Go in an hour...). I'm currently trying with dd, which seems two times faster, but still, with quick maths, it should take about 20 days to copy everything

So I wanted to know which solution would be the fastest to copy the datas from the broken hard drive to the new one, by still keeping the file hierarchy (if possible).

I know of PhotoRec but it doesn't keep the file hierarchy and files names. Testdisk seem to be a tool for numerically corrupted datas, so I'm not sure it'd fit for the current situation.

N0rbert avatar
zw flag
`ddrescue` will show progress and retry copying problematic areas, it also allows resume, see [page](https://forensicswiki.xyz/wiki/index.php?title=Ddrescue).
grybouilli avatar
cn flag
ok so i'm currently running it and it says ~400 days remaining lol, i'll leave it running for a while see if the remaining time decreases (otherwise i'll go back to dd i think)
sudodus avatar
jp flag
I agree with N0rbert, `ddrescue` is much better than `dd` for this purpose. Please read the info pages carefully: `info ddrescue` and use a suitable method (and don't forget the mapfile (log-file)).
grybouilli avatar
cn flag
I'm running `ddrescue -f -n -v /dev/sda1 /dev/sdb1 recovery.log`; we'll see how much time this takes
mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.