[Grml] How to use GRML to check whether a hard disk is failing

[Josh Lawrence]

On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 1:49 PM, Michael Schierl <schierlm at gmx.de> wrote:
> When you have cloned a dying hard disk with ddrescue (and were able to
> only copy a fraction of the information) your first choice should not be
> CHKDSK. CHKDSK primarily tries to restore the filesystem into a
> consistent state, which means that directories that are only partially
> readable will be completely lost completely afterwards - not very good
> if you try to rescue data.

yikes!  I had no idea.  thank you for the correction.

> Note that cloning from a failing drive can take a long time (hours to
> days), cloning the healthy clone afterwards is much faster.

curious about ddrescue, I'm reading the wiki page now:

http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Ddrescue

does ddrescue want to copy data to a hard drive of the same size?  I
seem to recall running into this issue with free imaging tools in the
past.  if not, it seems like ddrescue + netcat would make an awesome
free alternative to ghost.

-- 
Josh Lawrence
http://www.hardbop200.com