From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jan 5 15:32:46 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 550E71065693 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:32:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kuku@kukulies.org) Received: from werkwelt.de (post.werkwelt.de [91.194.85.74]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E46568FC19 for ; Tue, 5 Jan 2010 15:32:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [87.79.34.228] (account kuku@kukulies.org HELO [172.27.4.215]) by werkwelt.de (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.0.13) with ESMTPSA id 6741387 for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:32:13 +0100 Message-ID: <4B434D52.3030301@kukulies.org> Date: Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:31:46 +0100 From: Christoph Kukulies User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: copying a disk with ignoring errors X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:32:46 -0000 I recall a case when I had a hard disk that had got bad sectors and it wasn't accessible through normal mounting anymore. Then a tool came into the game that - I believe - Poul Henning had recommended or written for this purpose. It copies a disk sector by sector to a file (kind of dd), but ignores errors, it just skips sectors it couldn't read (after a couple of retries). The result was, that one had a - albeit - worm-eaten - image of the disk allowing to access the filesystem and getting to the important files with a little luck these not being amongst the corrupted data. Anyone knowing what this little tool was named? Something like diskcopy, devcopy, I forgot. -- Christoph