[TriLUG] Copying Files from a Dying HDD...with a twist

[Brian via TriLUG]

ddrescue is underway as we type.  I had not already tried it, it being 
something that fell into one of the many holes in my Linux knowledge! 
So far, I'm quite impressed by its reported progress.  It's already 
getting way better mileage than I was.

On 07/03/2018 05:13 PM, David Burton via TriLUG wrote:
> Better yet, make a couple of copies of the recovered .iso (being sure to
> also save the ddrescue logfile), and then use its "fill" option to fill the
> bad blocks two different ways, e.g., with 0x00 bytes in one copy, and with
> 0xFF bytes in another copy.
> [then compare files across the two images]

Great idea!  I'll keep that in mind.
> If it were a Windows file system, I'd have some additional suggestions,
> working from the ddrescue logfile to identify the damaged files.

It is, actually.  It's the godawful-slow HDD that came with my laptop 
and has Windows 10 on it, which I still use for some software 
synthesizers.  I was in the middle of dd-ing it across to a new SSD 
(with an external USB-SATA adapter) when I accidentally knocked it off 
the desk :-(

-B