Cloning a HDD
Posted: 24 Feb 2018, 22:15
Hello. I have a very serious problem. I've been using a 2TB Silicon Power Armor A80 external HDD over USB 3.0 (actually , the drive inside the rugged casing is manufactured by Seagate) which has failed on me, and no backup of any data on it. To complicate things more, the drive was fully encrypted with Symantec Desktop Encryption (formerly known as PGP Desktop Whole-Disk-Encryption by PGP Corp.)
I have noticed some lock-ups during a file transfer, and found some bad clusters on it. I immediately started the decryption process, but unfortunately it hung when 22% of the disk was left encrypted.
After wandering fort a couple of days for a solution on the Symantec forums, I found out that PGPWDE (the command line version of the program that handles the encryption/decryption process does not skip over bad clusters) and after another few days of research I found out, the best solution in this case was to clone the drive "bit-by-bit". I've read many good things about testdisk, but I'm not sure, how to proceed. On monday , I will receive a new 2TB Western Digital external HDD also on USB 3.0. As I have little to no knowledge in using testdisk, I would be very gratefull if somebody could guide me or give me a step by step instruction on what would be the best approach for cloning the disk. I have very important data (thousands of pictures I've shot over the last year as a photographer for my clients) and also some other important data. I would be very grateful if someone more experienced would take their time to help me. I am pretty desperate.
Thank you in advance. Adrian.
(please accept my apologies if I misspelled some words or if some sentences sound a bit awkward - I am not from an english-speaking country)
I have noticed some lock-ups during a file transfer, and found some bad clusters on it. I immediately started the decryption process, but unfortunately it hung when 22% of the disk was left encrypted.
After wandering fort a couple of days for a solution on the Symantec forums, I found out that PGPWDE (the command line version of the program that handles the encryption/decryption process does not skip over bad clusters) and after another few days of research I found out, the best solution in this case was to clone the drive "bit-by-bit". I've read many good things about testdisk, but I'm not sure, how to proceed. On monday , I will receive a new 2TB Western Digital external HDD also on USB 3.0. As I have little to no knowledge in using testdisk, I would be very gratefull if somebody could guide me or give me a step by step instruction on what would be the best approach for cloning the disk. I have very important data (thousands of pictures I've shot over the last year as a photographer for my clients) and also some other important data. I would be very grateful if someone more experienced would take their time to help me. I am pretty desperate.
Thank you in advance. Adrian.
(please accept my apologies if I misspelled some words or if some sentences sound a bit awkward - I am not from an english-speaking country)