ddrescue

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ddrescue is a tool provided by GNU to retrieve data from failing (block) storage devices like disk drives, CDROMs, or memory sticks, etc. It uses a similar technique as dd and copies block by block, but has an intelligent algorithm to recover failed data.

Installation

Emerge

Install sys-fs/ddrescue using the following command:

root #emerge --ask sys-fs/ddrescue

Usage

The general purpose of ddrescue is to recover data from failing block devices. It can be also used as a general disk (or even file) copying tool with quite a good efficiency and a nice progress bar.

Copy data

ddrescue can use block devices or files as input and output. The main difference to other programs used to copy files, is that the destination needs to be specified:

user $ddrescue /etc/portage/make.conf ~/make.conf

Rescue data

The strategy is to read and copy as much data as possible in the first round, since every access to the storage device could be the last one before it totally fails. Then try to copy the data off the failed/failing areas of the drive. Things to check before getting started:

  • The exact device name of the drive to rescue and any other device involved.
  • The health of the disk drive using smartmontools.
  • The drive should not be mounted during the process.
  • Enough disk space for recovered data.
  • Enough time, as the process may take a couple of hours.

Disk to image

In this scenario the disk drive /dev/sdb is about to fail and we want to create an exact copy in the form of an image.

First, copy every block without read error and log the errors to /root/rescue.log.

Note
This requires at least as much disk space as the size of the failing disk drive.
root #ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb /root/sdb_rescue.img /root/rescue.log
-f
Force ddrescue to run even if the destination file already exists.
-n
Skip the splitting phase to avoid spending a lot of time trying to rescue the most difficult parts of a file.

Second, copy only the bad blocks and try 3 times to read from the source before giving up:

root #ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sdb /root/sdb_rescue.img /root/rescue.log
-d
Use direct access to the drive and skip any cache.
-rN
Try N times to rescue the block.

Now the image can be mounted as loop device and the file system checked for corruption.

Note
It can be helpful to not retry at all in cases where the USB controller disconnects the drive if certain blocks are read. Here you may want to skip any errored block.

Disk to disk

In this scenario the disk drive /dev/sdb is about to fail and we want to create an exact copy on a new disk drive /dev/sdc, which should be at least the same size as the source drive.

First, copy every block without read error and log the errors to /root/rescue.log.

Warning
All data on /dev/sdc will be lost, including the partitions and partition table.
root #ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /root/rescue.log

Second, copy only the bad blocks and try 3 times to read from the source before giving up.

root #ddrescue -d -f -r3 /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /root/rescue.log

Now the new drive could be mounted and the file system checked for corruption.

See also

  • Dd — a utility used to copy raw data from a source into sink, where source and sink can be a block device, file, or piped input/output.
  • Dcfldd — an enhanced dd tool that includes additional features for forensics and security.
  • Pv — a command line tool to view verbose information about data streamed/piped through it.

External resources

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