GNU ddrescue
GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool used to copy data from damaged media. It can resume failed read operations and skip over bad sectors, making it useful for recovering data from failing hard drives or scratched CDs/DVDs.
data-recovery
disk-imaging
hard-drive-recovery
cddvd-recovery
GNU ddrescue: Data Recovery Tool for Damaged Media
GNU ddrescue is a data recovery tool used to copy data from damaged media. It can resume failed read operations and skip over bad sectors, making it useful for recovering data from failing hard drives or scratched CDs/DVDs.
What is GNU ddrescue?
GNU ddrescue is an open source data recovery utility used for copying data from damaged or failing storage media. It was designed to efficiently copy data from media with I/O errors, bad sectors, or physical damage while minimizing the number of read operations required.
Some key features of GNU ddrescue include:
- The ability to resume failed read operations, skipping over bad sectors that caused the failure and continuing from the last known good position. This allows you to gradually image drives with growing bad areas without restarting the recovery each time it fails.
- A mapfile that keeps track of bad sectors and areas that could not be read. This avoids rereading those bad areas repeatedly.
- The ability to prioritize recovery of critical data regions first before addressing less important areas of the disk.
- Flexibility in retrying read operations to maximize the chance of recovery.
- An intuitive command line interface and simple operation ideal for data recovery scenarios.
Overall, GNU ddrescue's robust error handling, resilience to failing media, and focus on minimizing disk I/O makes it an invaluable tool for recovering data from failing or severely damaged storage devices.
GNU ddrescue Features
Features
- Copies data from damaged or failing storage media
- Can resume failed read operations
- Skips over bad sectors
- Logs errors and progress to allow recovery to be resumed
- Supports cloning and imaging
- Works with block devices, files and network streams
Pricing
- Open Source
Pros
Free and open source
Very effective at recovering data from damaged media
Flexible options for controlling read process
Actively maintained and updated
Cons
Command line only, no GUI
Requires some technical skill to use effectively
Does not repair bad sectors, only copies available data
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