It's fascinating (ok, at least to the übergeeks among us) to note that SpinRite and GNU ddrescue have diametrically opposite approaches to data recovery. Yes despite being completely opposite, both approaches are still valid and each will work well in different scenarios.
I've been reminded by a few people that SpinRite in particular, while a very useful tool, can actually cause data LOSS in some scenarios - if you choose to purchase and use this (IMHO) extremely useful utility, PLEASE READ THE MANUAL FIRST. And beyond that, if you don't UNDERSTAND the manual, write Steve Gibson and ask (politely) for your money back - because if you don't understand what the manual is talking about, you are likely to use the tool incorrectly and lose more data than you save. Think of SpinRite as a lethal weapon - highly useful in the right situation, but if you don't know how to use it you'll just blow your foot off by accident.
Thank you for listening :-)
-Adam
On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 22:47, Daryl F
<wyatt@prairieturtle.ca> wrote:
To (sometimes) get around dd stopping on the first error or using 'noerr'
and getting nothing copied for a sector, I've been using a program called
ddrescue ref: http://directory.fsf.org/project/ddrescue/ that does several
retries before giving up. It also has some interesting techniques to
recover as much as possible from a damaged disks while minimizing further
damage.
--
-Adam Thompson
<
athompso@athompso.net>