Copying files from a bad HDD?

Gimpymoo · 20 Nov 2007 at 14:31

Drive is still accessible although some files wont copy.

Is there a program which can attempt to copy but will only copy the good data and ignore the bad? I.E to prevent me having to go through each file on the HDD and copy them seperately.

Many Thanks.

deuse · 20 Nov 2007 at 14:59

There are lots of recovery programs out there.
Recover My files\ Undelete Plus\ Uneraser to name a few.

But i dont know of any free ones. Get the trials of them and see if they do the job.

Gimpymoo · 20 Nov 2007 at 15:02

The themselves have not been deleted though.

Ideally, it seems like I need some software that understands that my HDD is broken, and is patient enough to wait for data to be copied, or knows to skip a file if it is taking too long. Does something like that exist?

deuse · 20 Nov 2007 at 15:10

I have used Recover My files to get some Jpegs that would not read off my HD
It work ok...

EffBee · 22 Nov 2007 at 22:31

What about the Acronis free trial. Try using it to backup the whole drive. There is a backup option to ignore bad sectors. I haven't tried it though.

Once you have a backup image from Acronis you can mount the image via the acronis program as a drive letter and use standard windows utilities to process the files on it.

The problem with a lot of partiton imaging backup utilities is that they stop when they hit a bad sector. They leave you screaming at the program " Yes I know that one or two sectors are bad, that's why I am using you, but nearly a hundred thousand are fine - just copy them for god' sake!"

ByteJuggler · 23 Nov 2007 at 07:54

Well, I use a Linux based recovery CD with "ddrescue" in these cases. It is exactly that sort of "patient" program that will copy all the sectors in a file that is easily readable first, and then try as hard as it can to read the dodgy/damaged sectors. If it succeeds you end up with a good copy of the file, or if not, at least you still have the file, albeit with holes where the damaged sectors were located. Sometimes this is far better than nothing at all, but obivously this depends greatly on the file in question. For a good Linux recovery CD with "ddrescue" on, see TRK. See the documentation section for procedure descriptions for various situations.

flip · 23 Nov 2007 at 13:51

you can use the xcopy command

xcopy "source" "dest" /y /c /e /h

example xcopy "d:\*.*" "c:\oldhdd" /y /c /e /h

this will copy all the data, but will continue if there is an error. Instead of getting a windows copy error and just stopping the rest of the copy

fliP.

JohnHind · 23 Nov 2007 at 15:15

I've found Handy Recovery very effective (www.handyrecovery.com). There is a free version or a paid for version with a limited functionality trial. The paid for version has a disk imaging tool built-in, which is worth using if the disk is deteriorating.
It is also sometimes worth keeping the drive as cool as possible during the recovery process - leave it bare on the bench with a strong fan blowing or even pack it in a jiffy bag with a sealed ice-pack (camping shops sell these).