On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 5:01 AM, Chris Penn <[email protected]> wrote:
> It can take several days to recover stuff regardless. Data recovery > is like watching someones life almost get destroyed in slow motion. > > On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Dante Lanznaster<[email protected]> wrote: > > LOL > Alright guys...talk your crap, but for what it's worth, here is why my last recovery took so damned long (for better or worse). First, the drive would not stay on long enough to use the standard tools (Ontrack, etc), so in order to get it that point, I had to make a dd of it. I couldn't use the normal dd because (as I said) it would crap out, so I used dd_rescue to make a bigass image of the disk with a log file (that let me recover), and then I mounted that bigass image in Windows with another tool (my original post on the matter) http://socallinux.org/pipermail/linuxusers/2009-May/006911.html Only then could I use tools like Ontrack, GetDataBack, or Photorec (and those take a long time also). And, for the record, Dante and Dino talked nothing but crap on the IRC channel about me doing it, and the only one helpful was Ed. So, yes...about 3 months later, I had successfully gotten about 90% of all of the pictures that my coworker had thought that he lost. So, to the original poster (Jason, right?), you are likely in good shape. Yes, I've used the place that Dante suggested (if it's the one off the 5 fwy in Sorrento Valley), and they are very good (but expensive). But if you are willing to put in some elbow grease (and yes, possibly up to three months if you work full time and travel like me), then you can likely recover it all for a tiny fraction of the cost. Right now, I've recovered about 3 or 4 dozen drives in this way for various friends and family. There's not "one size fits all" approach, and each recovery attempt is always its own little monster. But chances are that I can help save you a ton of time. (Email me offline for my cell phone, and perhaps I can walk you through it that way. I'm really busy this week setting up the wireless for Lollapalooza, so if I'm not available, email me your cell and I'll call you later) Oh yeah, I almost forgot..a site that is extremely helpful is www.forensicfocus.com. One of the last place Dino and I worked at did forensic work, and I would hit that board a lot for various forensic/recovery-related tasks that we had to do. There are a lot of top notch people there who can tell you how to safety recover your data.
