DDrescue really is the best tool I know of to recover data, but there is one thing that is missing.
I really need a set of utilities (for different filessytems) that can use a partial dump and log file, and create a log file with the unused sections of the drive marked read. It seems such a required function that it is hard to believe that no one has created them, but I have not been able to find them. An additional feture would be to be able to mark particular files (pagefile.sys and hyberfile.sys come to mind) as read. If my dreams came true, displaying filenames that are known and their blocks, so that I can know where the important files are and recover them first. If this was done, a change to the logfile structure would be also useful: an additional type of block, say with the marking character a number from 0 to 9, indicating priority (logically it would be like ?, ie untried). This would go along with a new option, where you could specify the minimum priority that ddrescue would attempt to read. A workflow would go like this: 1. run ddrescue using -s to get the first few megabytes. 2. Run the utility to analyze the partial log file, which would mark unused blocks as +, and mark known files like this 0xposition 0xsize ? # /hyberfile.sys 0xposition 0xsize ? # /Users/ 3. Edit the log file, changing the ? to + for files I do not need to recover, and changing the ? to, say '9' for things I need. For instance 0xposition 0xsize + # /hyberfile.sys 0xposition 0xsize 9 # /Users/ 4. Then run ddrescue with a, say --min_priority=9 argument. That would get me the directory for /users and allow me to do steps 2 and three again, to prioritize and get user files first. 5. If needed, run ddrescue as normal to get the rest of the files. Anyway, that's my dream, but has anyone produced the simple(r) 'mark unused' utilities? At least for ntfs and/or vfat? _______________________________________________ Bug-ddrescue mailing list [email protected] https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-ddrescue
