I have a failing hard drive, I need to recover the remaining files. Some are listed in windows explorer, some are not but the drive hangs when I try a bulk transfer.
What is the best way to recover these files?
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There are a number of products that may do this. Search, and review the capabilities.– anonCommented Oct 16, 2023 at 20:31
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I'm getting a catastrophically slow transfer rate.– maxicalCommented Oct 16, 2023 at 20:41
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sometimes 18 kb/s– maxicalCommented Oct 16, 2023 at 20:41
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1"What is the best way to recover these files?" - There is likely very little you can do, only using software, to recover the remaining files if the drive has suffered a physical failure. Your best hope would be to hire a data recovery company, to copy what data they can recover, they typically have access to specialized hardware and software. Likewise, depending on the failure, even they might not be able to recovery the data from the drive.– RamhoundCommented Oct 16, 2023 at 21:31
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4try clone/image the drive using ddrescue or hddsuperclone first, then recover data from the clone/image, using file recovery tools if needed.– Joep van SteenCommented Oct 16, 2023 at 21:53
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1 Answer
Your best option is to clone the drive using something like ddrescue or HDDSuperClone.
Tools like these will try reduce stress on the drive by skipping over bad areas during first passes, plus they're able to pick up where they left if the process crashes for some reason.
You can clone to either another drive directly or to a disk image file. There's a chance, depending on how much of the source was successfully copied the resulting clone or disk image can be mounted so you can copy your data. In other cases you may need additional file recovery software.
Also see: https://www.reddit.com/r/datarecovery/comments/13m79c3/why_always_clone_first/
answered Oct 16, 2023 at 23:44
