Copy video files from failing USB hard drive

[AndyT]

Another update. Tried to continue the disk to disk copy with ddrescue but it didn't seem to be installed any longer. I'm not familiar with Fedora or the application but I could find no trace of the application or of any log files. I couldn't work out how to start the process from where I left off either so was just hoping it would automatically do this. I tried to enter the command to start the copy but it would not auto-complete the command when I pressed tab, which was a clue it was not installed. I typed out the command anyway but it was not recognised.

[liveuser@localhost-live ~]$ ddrescue
bash: ddrescue: command not found...
[liveuser@localhost-live ~]$ ddrescue /dev/sdd /dev/sdb sdb.log
bash: ddrescue: command not found...

So I've now installed ddrescue again, but I would imagine my logfile no longer exists, so I'm looking at starting the copy process again. I've held off for now in case there's an alternative option.

Thanks

[recuperation]

Thanks for your quick replies, really appreciated.

Point taken on missing out information at the start of the thread, with that in mind let me give you the full background in case I've not mentioned anything relevant.

I had a plex media server running on a Ubuntu Server VM (ESXi host). All the media, photos, music, movies, were stored on an external 4TB NTFS USB Hard Drive which was attached to the host machine and mounted on the Ubuntu Server. This all worked fine for a long while, but then I noticed movies not starting and when checking I found whole directories were no longer available. I removed the USB drive from the server and connected to a Windows 10 laptop to see if I could access the missing directories, I couldn't. I ran chkdsk which attempted to repair the drive. Afterwards I could access some of the missing directories and so I tried copying the files. Copying would hang each time it came across a corrupt file.

Signs of a broken drive with unreadable sectors.

Opening directories was slow but would work eventually. It seemed if a photo had a thumbnail then it was ok to copy, so I was manually copying photos a few at a time.

I decided to move away from Ubuntu Server as it was an effort to maintain, so I took the drives out of the PC and put in another and installed Windows 10. This is going to be my new media server moving forward. I got myself an internal 4TB drive learning the lesson from using an external USB drive which was not meant to be on 24/7. This new internal drive is where I'm now trying to copy my files to.

I tried various tools to try and copy the files or clone the drive only having any success with Testdisk. As explained it copied the photos ok, even copying the corrupt files and sometimes recovering them it seems, so I'm happy with that. Those recovered files are now on another USB hard drive freeing up the internal 4TB drive.

So I'm now at the point where I tried the disk to disk copy, using Fedora on a USB stick in the PC that was my media server. I did use a logfile, so in theory then I can continue the disk to disk copy and hopefully complete it, I will do this.

Will only work if you stored your logfile on a lasting storage.

So, assuming the disk to disk copy completes ok, what are my next steps? Should I be able to access this drive from Windows 10?

The duplicate of your drive should not have physical errors. Because of the inability to copy the content of broken sectors, your copy has logical errors either within a files or within metadata. Copying does not heal the errors. Windows always wants to write on drives. Recovering means reading, not writing.

You've said not to connect to a Windows machine anymore, is this just while the copy is not complete?

See above.

You mentioned running Photorec on the drive. I tried this before without success but this was from Windows.

??? Off your broken drive?!

I can try from Fedora maybe? I'm pretty much out of hard drives now, so I don't have another drive to copy to, certainly not another 4TB drive but I might be able to free up a 500mb drive. I had hoped cloning from the failing USB Hard drive to the internal Hard drive would be the solution.

You should have at least 4TB when operating Photorec as you can't determine the size of the outcome if you let it work on the full drive.

So I've now installed ddrescue again, but I would imagine my logfile no longer exists, so I'm looking at starting the copy process again. I've held off for now in case there's an alternative option.

You can run Photorec to extract stuff from your duplicate drive. It's not just defragmentation but the location of your erroneous sectors as well that determines the outcome.

[AndyT]

Hi.
Yes I ran photorec to copy off of the faulty drive to the new drive.

How do I fix the logical errors of the copied files?

As a newbie what are the steps for recovering my drive from a high level?

Clone faulty 4tb USB drive to new 4tb drive?
Recover new 4tb drive to another 4tb drive?
Can I recover individual files maybe?

Is it worth trying to recover the cloned drive at the moment since it didn't complete?

It looks like I might have to start over so if the steps above are correct I guess I need another 4tb drive.

Really appreciate the help.

[recuperation]

Hi.
Yes I ran photorec to copy off of the faulty drive to the new drive.

How do I fix the logical errors of the copied files?

You can't.

As a newbie what are the steps for recovering my drive from a high level?

Clone faulty 4tb USB drive to new 4tb drive?

Yes.

Recover new 4tb drive to another 4tb drive?

Yes. Gives you the freedom of being able to try out anything. If you fail, you would just copy your physically intact reference drive to your test drive again.

Can I recover individual files maybe?

??? You did already! Read your posts!

Is it worth trying to recover the cloned drive at the moment since it didn't complete?

Honestly, I don't think so because you are asking. That applies to everybody who is asking this question.

It looks like I might have to start over so if the steps above are correct I guess I need another 4tb drive.

Yes.