Re: copying data from a partition with badblocks
On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 14:35:42 -0400, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
> Camaleón wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 30 Aug 2012 11:07:15 -0400, Kamaraju S Kusumanchi wrote:
>>
>>> One of the partitions on my hard drive has badblocks. I did a
>>>
>>> $sudo e2fsck -c -c -f -v /dev/sdb7
>>>
>>> on it and it found 757 badblocks. The partition itself is 100 GB and
>>> only 18 GB of it is filled. Now my question is how to salvage the
>>> data?
>>
>> Badblocks "per se" are not indicative for an inminent hard disk
>> failure. Badblocks usually come along with another signals as smart
>> test failures, I/O errors in the logs, speed decreasing when running
>> common tasks, smarctl showing a rapid increment for the values tagged
>> as "pre_fail" and such.
>>
>>
> ok. But in this case, I am not able to run smartctl on the hard drive.
> It is an external USB hard drive and smartctl does not recognize it.
That's another disadvantadge for integrated external hard disks, that
depending on the USB chipset it cannot be used with smartmontools :-P
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/FAQ#SmartmontoolsforFireWireUSBandSATAdiskssystems
If both components were bought as stand-alone items (hard disk and USB
enclosure) you can remove the disk, connect it to the internal SATA port
and run the test.
> Unfortunately, I do not know what option to specify with the -d.
>
> $smartctl -a /dev/sdb
> smartctl 5.41 2011-06-09 r3365 [i686-linux-3.0.0-1-686-pae] (local
> build) Copyright (C) 2002-11 by Bruce Allen,
> http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
>
> /dev/sdb: Unknown USB bridge [0x059b:0x0571 (0x000)] Smartctl: please
> specify device type with the -d option.
>
> Use smartctl -h to get a usage summary
(...)
There's a list of supported devices here, you can check if yours is
listed:
http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki/Supported_USB-Devices
OTOH, I bet you can still run the diagnostic tool of the hard disk
manufacturer that usually support USB attached devices and can be run
from a LiveCD.
>>> Can someone recommend a hard drive manufacturer/model that is more
>>> resistant to developing badblocks? The drive that gone bad is an
>>> iomega prestige portable USB 3.0 external hard drive.
>>
>> For a company I prefer to choose those hard disks tagged as
>> "enterprise" with 5 years guarantee (since I switched to SATA I always
>> buy Seagate).
>>
>>
> For me the badblocks seem to be developing after couple of years no
> matter what the hard drive is.
Thta's not normal. I've been using IDE, SCSI and SATA hard disks of all
kind (for home users and enterprise and from different manufacturers -
mostly Segate but also Fujitsu, IBM and Samsung) and never had a single
problem with badblocks nor a really faulty or completely death hard disk.
True is that all of the systems are protected by UPS units and power
spikes are one of the worst enemies for hard disks (heat can also damage
them).
> May be I am doing something fundamentally wrong. What surprised me is
> that this is a back up drive and not used heavily at all. I guess
> iOmega drives are not very stable.
The last thing I had from Iomega it was a ZIP drive. Definitely, Iomega
is not on my list of hard disk manufacturer's nor external drives list :-)
Anyway, Iomega external drives have to integrate Segate, WD or Hitachi
hard disks for their units because AFAICT, they are not hard disk
manufacturers. Anyway, most of the external USB hard disks are "designed"
for Windows or MacOS not linux as they come with a set of tools that
require one of these OSes. Another reason to avoid them as much as I
can :-)
>> Also, I tend to avoid as much as I can those external hard disks that
>> came integrated along with the enclosure: I prefer to buy the case and
>> the disk as separate items so I can choose the best devices in the
>> market and also by doing it this way I can replace the hard disk in the
>> event it breaks or should I need more space :-)
>>
>>
> This one is very slim and does not even have an external case.
?
It has an external case, of course.
> http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Prestige-Portable-SuperSpeed-35194/dp/B004NIDHXC
That's exactly the kind of device I would never ever buy O:-)
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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