hard disk crash

[James Wilkinson]

Emiliano Brunetti wrote:
> I am running FC1 and one of my hdd crashed: i can't even mount it.

"linux r" suggested:
> 3.  dd it to another removable device, preferably another (USB
> external) hard drive so that you don't run into weird geometry issues
> or other time consuming things.
> 
Emiliano replied:
> I never really used dd. After i copy the whole partition to another
> hopefully healthy drive, can't i just zap everything away from the old
> damaged drive and format it? I just wish i could save some of the data.
> 
> Is this correct?

Once you've made *sure* you've got everything you can.

You should be in paranoia mode here. Your data may be there, or it may
not. Keep as many copies as you can: the last thing you want to do is to
mess up a command and lose your "good" copy.

Incidentally, one of the easiest commands to mess up is dd: make sure
you get the if= and the of= devices right. It's too common for someone
to get one of these wrong (or put the of device against if= and vice
versa), and copy over something they really wanted to keep.

I wouldn't do anything to that hard drive until you're happy you've got
everything into its new home and properly backed up.

And I wouldn't fully trust it, even then.

Hope this helps,

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | I suppose if one has to go mad, slowly is the way to
@westexe.demon.co.uk  | go. You wouldn't want to rush going mad, you might
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