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Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 19:40:45 +0200
From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
To: Robert <traveling08@cox.net>
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Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: OT: fdisk
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On Sun, 3 Oct 2010 10:00:51 -0700, Robert <traveling08@cox.net> wrote:
> I have a spare 250G hard drive. Can I use "dd" to capture 250 gigs
> from the old drive? Using da1 and ad12 as the if and of will the result
> be an NTFS formatted 250g drive? Will I have the same results, i.e.
> able to mount ad12 but not ad12s1?

Yes, as dd gives you an 1:1 copy of what you have. If you intend
to "experiment" on the partition (which means that you don't just
do reading operations, but writing operations, too), and you're
using FreeBSD for that, simply use dd's of= parameter to write to
a file instead of directly to the partition; format the ad12 disk
with UFS for that purpose. 



> Should I zero out the 250g drive
> first?

No need, as dd should overwrite anything.



> Can "ddrescue" do a better job?

The ddrescue program has the ability to adjust reading block
size dynamically if reading errors occur. As you said, the
disk itself seems to be fine, so no job for ddrescue here.



> The Docs&Sets folders
> are the most important to recover so if I can access the data, I can
> burn it to DVD. 

If everything fails, use "The Sleuth Kit"; after installing it,
read /usr/local/share/doc/sleuthkit/skins_ntfs.txt for more
information.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...