[TriLUG] Drive recovery services

Mon Oct 13 11:58:11 EDT 2014

That's an AWESOME post, thanks so much for the advice.

At this point, I think 2 of the drives are so FUBAR that they aren't
recognized by the controller, but I'll give it a shot.  I've already got a
Parted Magic USB stick, so that's a step in the right direction.

-Wes

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:49 AM, David Burton <ncdave4life at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Yes, pull the drives from the raid controller and connect them to
> standalone machine(s) for the data recovery effort. But don't use
> Spin-Rite. Instead, use *ddrescue <http://freecode.com/projects/addrescue/
> >*
> to try to copy each drive to a new one.
>
> Spin-Rite is not for recovering whole drives. It's for trying to scrape
> usable data from the last few unrecoverable sectors on a drive from which
> you've already rescued almost all of the other data.
>
> Photorec is for trying to recover some of your lost files if you've given
> up on recovering the whole file system. It is the tool of last resort.
>
> Use ddrescue for each drive individually. If there are no errors, you'll
> know it. If there are errors, you'll know that, too, and you'll
> simultaneously recover all or almost all of the readable sectors.
>
> Be sure to use a log file with ddrescue (probably on a FAT32 thumb drive),
> so that you'll have status about what copied correctly and what didn't, and
> so that if the operation is aborted before complete, ddrescue can resume
> where it left off, without significant loss of work.
>
> If you end up having to send a drive to a hardware recovery outfit, the
> least expensive is probably Gillware <http://gillware.com/?affiliate=16258
> >,
> and I'm an "affiliate," so I get a kickback for referrals, which I would
> split with you. That will save you a few bucks.
>
> I can help you with ddrescue. Its author, Antonio Diaz, did a heavy
> redesign of it some years ago, in response to my feedback. He basically
> rewrote it to my specs!
>
> I've also written a number of perl scripts which operate on ddrescue log
> files to perform a variety of useful functions. One of them creates a
> SpinRite batch script from a ddrescue logfile, to run SpinRite on just the
> remaining unrecoverable sectors. The perl scripts are on my server in this
> .zip file <http://www.burtonsys.com/download/dos4linux.zip>, but if you're
> going to use them please let me know, so I can update the .zip archive,
> because I think that version is out-of-date.
>
> However, I've never messed with ZFS.
>
> Here's an excerpt of an email that I just sent to a Windows user (and Linux
> newbie) whose HDD is dying, about how to use ddrescue (from the PartedMagic
> distro) to copy his dying 1TB NTFS drive to a new one:
>
> *1.* download and burn PartedMagic to CD or DVD:
> > Leave it in the CD drive (or put it in, if you burned it using a
> different
> > computer).
> > *2.* plug in your new thumb drive, and make sure it works and is
> > formatted FAT32.
> > *3.* shut down your computer, and attach the new HDD in place of the old
> > one, and attach the old one as a 2nd HDD. (Hopefully you have an
> available
> > SATA power connector and SATA data cable.)
> > *4.* boot PartedMagic.
> > *5.* Open a command prompt/shell.  (It's one of the little icons at the
> > top or bottom of the screen.)
> > *6.* Do this command:
> > fdisk -lu
> > That will tell you which drive is which.
> > The one with NTFS partitions on it is your old drive. It might be
> > /dev/sdb, and the partitions might be /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2, etc.
> > The empty one is your new drive.  It might be /dev/sda
> > The little one with the FAT32 partition is your thumb drive. It might be
> > /dev/sdc, and the partition might be /dev/sdc1
> > WARNING: since your old and new drives are the same size, it is easy to
> > make the disastrous mistake of mixing them up!  Be VERY careful!  Note
> that
> > the "Disk Identifier" will be copied along with the rest of the drive, so
> > that will NOT help you tell the difference. As soon as you start the copy
> > operation, the two drives will look identical to fdisk, so it is very
> easy
> > to mix them up.
> > *7.* Use hdparm to determine the drive model and serial number for both
> > the new and the old drives.  Write them down. Do NOT mix them up.
> > hdparm -i /dev/sda
> > hdparm -i /dev/sdb
> > *8.* mount the thumb drive. In this example, I mount it at /media/sdc1
> > but that is arbitrary; you can use any folder:
> > mkdir /media/sdc1
> > mount /dev/sdc1 /media/sdc1
> > *9.* make the thumb drive the current folder:
> > cd /media/sdc1
> > *10.* "pwd" tells you the current folder; make sure it's what you think
> > it is (/media/sdc1):
> > pwd
> > *11.* double-check the drives and their serial numbers, to be 100% sure
> > that you know which is the old one, and which is the new one!
> > (that's steps 6 & 7)
> > *12. *copy the old drive to the new one using ddrescue.  In this example,
> > I assume the old drive is /dev/sdb, but that is NOT necessarily true on
> > your computer:
> > ddrescue -f /dev/sdb /dev/sda drive.log
> > Note #1: the parameter order is:    option(s) olddrive newdrive logfile
> > Do NOT scramble the order, lest you lose EVERYTHING.
> > Note #2: this is the ddrescue manual:
> > https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html
> > Note this warning from the manual:
> > *"**Some systems may change device names on reboot (eg. udev enabled
> > systems). If you reboot, check the device names before restarting
> > ddrescue."*
> > ("Check the device names" means "fdisk -lu" and/or "hdparm -i")
> > The ddrescue command will take a long time.
> > If something goes wrong, you can reboot and resume starting at step 8,
> but
> > be sure you triple-check which drive is which.  (/dev/sda might now be
> > /dev/sdb ! ! !)
> > If your new drive is an "advanced format" drive (i.e., if it has 4K
> > sectors instead of 512 byte sectors), then you *might* find that Windows
> > is dog-slow when you're done.  If so, that might be due to partition
> > misalignment.  There are tools to fix it.
> > Here's a Seagate tool to check for the issue, when you're done:
> > http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/214391en?language=en_US
> > Here're some Seagate documents:
> > http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/221411en?language=en_US
> >
> >
> http://www.seagate.com/tech-insights/advanced-format-4k-sector-hard-drives-master-ti/
> > Dave
> >
> >
> Dave
> www.geeksalive.com
>
>
>
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:11 AM, Matt Whitlow <
> matt.church.whitlow at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm
> >
> > You have to pull the drives out of the raid controller and run it in a
> > separate machine, the controller doesn't give low enough access to the
> > drive. Spin-rite has recoved drives for me in the past start with a level
> > 2.
> >
>
>
> > On Oct 13, 2014 10:45 AM, "Wes Garrison" <wes at xitechusa.com> wrote:
> >
> > > I just had 3 simultaneous failures on my ZFS pool with raidz2. (2
> > failures
> > > = OK, 3=bad.)
> > >
> > > Can anyone recommend a good drive recovery service (that's less than
> > > $1000).
> > >
> > > 1 of the disk developed 60,000 bad sectors in a 4 week period since the
> > > last time I checked it and it had 0.
> > >
> > > However, the other 2 both had 0 bad sectors and then stopped being
> > > accessible with no warning.
> > >
> > > This makes me believe the data is still there on these 2 drives.
> > >
> > > I think if I can get a sector-by-sector copy of one of them, I can
> > resilver
> > > (rebuild) my array.
> > >
> > > What do you folks think?
> > >
> > > -Wes
> >
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-- 
_________________________________
Wesley S. Garrison
Network Engineer
Xitech Communications, Inc.
phone:  (919) 260-0803
pager:   (919) 869-1744
fax:       (919) 928-5746
__________________________________
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