hard disk failure - now what?

[Polytropon]

On Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:29:19 -0600, Kelly Martin <kellymartin at gmail.com> wrote:
> My question: what kind of checks and/or repair tools should I run on
> the damaged drive after it's mounted? Or should I mount it as
> read-only and start backing it up?

Thou shalt not manipluate thy file systems while they are mounted. :-)
Perform an fsck on the partitions first, then mount them ro. Copy
the files you need.

In case you can't "reach" essential files, you have the change to
use forensic tools to get them.

Finally, keep in mind that for further diagnostics and restore
operations it's always wise not to use the original file systems,
i. e. the original disk. Make dd copies of the partitions onto
a working disk and use them instead. Luckily, most operations
work on plain files as well as on block device specials.



> I am hoping most of my data is
> still there, but also don't want to damage it further.

Good idea. This encourages you to follow the advice given above.



> I desperately
> need to salvage the data, what do the kind people on this list
> recommend?

BACKUPS!!! =^_^=



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...