kernel panic(?) trying to copy data off failed drive with dd

[Miroslav Lachman]

Greg Lane wrote:
[...]
> The machine is running 5.5 pre-release.  I can pull the disk and put it 
> in a machine running 6-stable if that will help.  I could also install 
> current on some box or another. Whatever will get the data back!! 
> 
> Advice please?!?
> 
> Cheers,
> Greg

Maybe you can try /usr/ports/sysutils/cpdup which can skip read errors. 
I used cpdup few years ago on HDD with bad sectors with success - lose 
only few unreadable files from the middle of disk.

Miroslav Lachman