Re: copying data from a partition with badblocks
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.
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
> If you still decide to replace the disk with a newer one, I'd copy the
> data from an off-line system (e.g., from a LiveCD). If data is still
> fully accessible you can use any tool you prefer for the task.
>
> When it comes to cloning a full system I like Clonezilla (or the like)
> applications.
>
> And for deep data corruption that lead to data lose there are specialized
> tools such "PhotoRec/TestDisk" that can help you with recovery.
>
got it. Thanks.
>> 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. 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.
> 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.
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Prestige-Portable-
SuperSpeed-35194/dp/B004NIDHXC
--
Kamaraju S Kusumanchi
http://malayamaarutham.blogspot.com/
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