[clue-tech] Failing drive [was Re: virtualization]

[David L. Anselmi]

Maxwell Spangler wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I have a failed/failing SATA disk over here.  Can you recommend any
> tools I can run on it to test it in depth and or try to recover data?

Use the manufacturer's test suite.  You'll need the results for an RMA anyway.

> It fails a BIOS driven SMART read test 3 seconds into it.  I can boot
> grub on it and attempt to load a kernel but it runs into problem long
> before single user mode might be accessable.

I'd boot from other media.  Perhaps you can avoid the bad part or at least avoid cycling it for 
stuff you don't need.

To recover data if it can't be read easily use ddrescue.  That will work better if /home is on it's 
own partition.  If not maybe there is a tool that will work on directory contents.

Dave