Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:51:41 -0600 From: Tim Judd <tajudd@gmail.com> To: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> Cc: Kelly Martin <kellymartin@gmail.com>, FreeBSD Questions <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: hard disk failure - now what? Message-ID: <ade45ae90908241351o56e6649cv4dfc50a8fee5aeff@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <20090824224003.0b5ac2df.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <1338880b0908241129p75b6845cg26d21804e118364@mail.gmail.com> <ade45ae90908241313y495832edkd87004485602a42e@mail.gmail.com> <20090824224003.0b5ac2df.freebsd@edvax.de>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On 8/24/09, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> wrote: > On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:13:22 -0600, Tim Judd <tajudd@gmail.com> wrote: >> If I were you, get a copy of spinrite (from grc.com) and always keep >> it handy. It can be risky on a drive already failing. Here's what >> I'd do.... >> >> Buy spinrite, no matter what. > > Is it really such a good tool? From my own problems, I researched > that common recovery tools are "R-Studio" and "UFS Explorer". Both > do not natively run on BSD, but the first one offers a bootable > CD. Without buying, you can run the diagnostics mode fullwise. > For recovery, you need to buy the program. > > The "Spinrite" web page reads as follows: > > The industry's #1 hard drive data recovery > software is NOW COMPATIBLE with NTFS, > FAT, Linux, and ALL OTHER file systems! It's OS/FS independent. it works on the bits stored on the magnetic platters, NOT on a filesystem. TiVo, Linux, BSD and Mac OSX drives are treated the same. Bits on a magnetic platter. It's recovery stems from the randomization and movement of the head to the sector in question that allows it to salvage any bits it can (for example, other recovery will abandon 512bytes if 1 bit cannot be read. spinrite will recover 512bytes-1bit to a hard drive's spare sector once spinrite says "i'm done working with this sector".) It leads to a very successful rate. > > What? Linux and other file systems? > > Is this just marketing, in order to look good to the not very > educated ones? Or do they not know what they're talking about? > > In fact, I will keep an eye on this program. Maybe it can help me > get my data back (inode defect of $HOME entry). I'm reading their > web page some more right now. > Again, works on the bits. if it's a bit problem, it will do it's best to fix the problem, unless it's a hardware defect and cannot be relocated. If enough sectors are relocated, and the drive has run out of spare sectors, it's time to scrap the drive anyway. > >> slave the bad drive, read-only mount.. even if the FS is dirty, >> read-only.. no fsck. > > You can at least do one fsck run without any modification options, > like a "read only file system check". This of course can - like > any read operation on the disk - be risky if the disk is fast > degrading, simply by using it. which is why i recommend against making changes to the disk until a spinrite has completed. Personally, I setup a spinrite to be net-bootable (not officially supported). I can write a walkthrough to people who want to net-boot it. I won't provide spinrite, of course. I currently netboot: FreeBSD memtest86 spinrite with no changes to my setup any time I want to boot anything. > > -- > Polytropon > Magdeburg, Germany > Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 > Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... >
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?ade45ae90908241351o56e6649cv4dfc50a8fee5aeff>