[TriLUG] data recovery---Linux low-level format program available??

[al johson]

And if the drive is apparently not working anyway, you should definitely put
it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer!! I've brought lots of drives
back to life with this simple trick. You must thoroughly defrost it before
attempting to use it in your computer.
You just leave it at room temp. for 5-6 hrs. Don't laugh, it does work in
many cases. If the drive does work, you should back it up as soon as
possible thereafter. And discard it after you've gotten your data back.

    Speaking of fixing hard drives, decades ago we used to "low-level format
hard drives" to fix them.
This process would mark all the bad sectors on the drive and you could then
use the drive as if it were new! Unfortunately, the software which did this
trick sort of disappeared (I'm assuming the drive manufacturers wanted it to
die so they could sell more hard drives).

I only mention this because I read somewhere that there was a LINUX program
which could low level format a hard drive. Anyone know if this is true and
what the name of that program might be???  Al Johnson
KQ4FP at arrl.net

=============
========================
----- Original Message -----
From: lfwelty <lfwelty at redback.com>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 10:09 PM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] data recovery


> Have you eliminated all hw issues, pwr, cabling?
> Have you tried booting the drive in another computer?
>
> Is this a scsi or ide drive?
>
> If ide, have you changed its master/slave settings
> since the original failure? You may have better luck
> booting off another drive and mounting the damaged
> drive as a slave on the ide...
>
> If you want to try to handle the recovery yourself,
> try taking a look at the LDP:
>
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Linux-Complete-Backup-and-Recovery-HOWTO/index
.html
>
> Good luck.
>
> F.
>
> JoJo Almario wrote:
> >
> > The hard drive isn't even recognized in the bios.  I hada backup script
> > running that would tar the files to a tape drive but somehow it only was
> > able to get 2 gigs of the 5gigs.
> > I tried the hdd in a different computer but it still wouldn't recognize
in
> > the bios.  It had the whole home partition on it, with the boot, root,
/usr
> > and /etc on the first drive.  No RAID so I can't rebuild.  I suck!  Any
> > suggestions?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: trilug-admin at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-admin at trilug.org]On Behalf
> > Of Sinner from the Prairy
> > Sent: Monday, March 18, 2002 4:46 PM
> > To: trilug at trilug.org
> > Subject: Re: [TriLUG] data recovery
> >
> > On Dilluns 18 Març 2002 10:32 am, JoJo Almario wrote:
> > > Does anybody know of a data recovery service anywhere in the triangle.
My
> > > drive went down  and the back up was corrupted.  There is mission
critical
> > > datat on there, so proximity is essential
> >
> > What is the problem?
> >
> > I recently recovered data from a HDD that had lost the partition table.
I
> > used
> > TestDisk from http://www.cgsecurity.org , an open source solution.
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > Salut,
> > Sinner
> > --
> > "I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your
father
> > smelt of elderberries!"
> > RedHat QA Test Engineer  --  Running RedHat 7.2 on i386smp
> > http://www.ibiblio.org/sinner/
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> Frank Welty                |  15401 Weston Parkway, Suite 150
> lfwelty at redback.com        |  Cary, NC 27513
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