Failing Win XP HDD

[Postal2]

soldar, if your OS is Windows, I can provide my tool for cloning with instructions. You will finish your work in 30 minutes.

[soldar]

--size is a self explaining option.

Probably this option might have worked for me the first time around had I known it. Without it I just got an error that the destination was smaller than the original and the program terminated. 

I might try this next first but I want to wait a while because I have spent too much time on this already and I need to recover myself. And I want to make sure everything works OK in my new copy so I will be using it for a while before I do the new clone.

So, let us assume:

Origin:
sda = MBR, total 3TB, HDD
- sda1 : 336 GB NTFS
- sda2 : 663 GB NTFS
- Empty space : 2 TB

Destination:
sdb : 500 GB, empty, SSD

So I can try
sudo ddrescue --size 350GB /dev/sda /dev/sdb /home/user/Desktop/mapfile.txt

And that would copy the MBR, the first partition and just the beginning of the second partition. Then I could use something like gparted or similar tool to delete the part of the second partition and enlarge the first partition to fill the entire 500 GB of the SSD. Correct?

[Postal2]

........ Then I could use something like gparted or similar tool to delete the part of the second partition and enlarge the first partition to fill the entire 500 GB of the SSD. Correct?

You can boot clone and make all needed from there.

[m k]

So I can try
sudo ddrescue --size 350GB /dev/sda /dev/sdb /home/user/Desktop/mapfile.txt

And that would copy the MBR, the first partition and just the beginning of the second partition. Then I could use something like gparted or similar tool to delete the part of the second partition and enlarge the first partition to fill the entire 500 GB of the SSD. Correct?

Yes.
But since there are no problems now you can drop the mapfile.
You can also try something fancy, since as you know, Linux is a nerd thing.

Generally syntax between options like -s and --size are different, but it's not stone carved.
Usually '--' and '=' are friends.

sudo touch /home/user/Desktop/1st_blk.img
sudo ddrescue -s 512 /dev/sdb /home/user/Desktop/1st_blk.img
sudo hexdump --canonical /home/user/Desktop/1st_blk.img > /home/user/Desktop/1st_blk.txt

There's your new MBR, it may have many copies.

sudo touch /home/user/Desktop/some_blocks.img
sudo ddrescue -s 4096 /dev/sdb /home/user/Desktop/some_blocks.img

Then the fancy part.

sudo ddrescue -o 462 --size=16 /dev/zero /dev/sdb

Now you have cleared the second partition table, or that's at least my impression.
Not very canonical way of ddrescue, but hey, it's a nerd thing.

[Monkeh]

soldar, if your OS is Windows, I can provide my tool for cloning with instructions. You will finish your work in 30 minutes.

Just like with any other tool once you're done dealing with drive firmware.

Then I could use something like gparted or similar tool to delete the part of the second partition and enlarge the first partition to fill the entire 500 GB of the SSD. Correct?

Don't enlarge the partition from outside Windows. Windows is not smart, and will break.

[Postal2]

Just like with any other tool once you're done dealing with drive firmware.

I told you, it's natively win32diskimager.
https://github.com/joshg253/win32diskimager/blob/master/src/disk.cpp

Added:
Enumerating all disks via setupapi;
Enhanced checking/skipping of errors;
Variable buffer size.

[Monkeh]

Just like with any other tool once you're done dealing with drive firmware.

I told you, it's natively win32diskimager.
https://github.com/joshg253/win32diskimager/blob/master/src/disk.cpp

And? It's not magically faster than any other tool which relies on the OS to handle the disk. Now he has a clean copy there's no bottleneck (which was never the tool, always the drive).

[Postal2]

And? It's not magically faster than any other tool which relies on the OS to handle the disk.

You right. It's not magically faster. Simply your tool is magically slower.

(which was never the tool, always the drive).

Okay, dumb disk drive seats on the track, watch track signature, can re-read without moving, but so dumb to execute reset. Your tool nothing do with it.

[Monkeh]

And? It's not magically faster than any other tool which relies on the OS to handle the disk.

You right. It's not magically faster. Simply your tool is magically slower.

The tool you didn't even know existed, despite it being 20 years old, and that you've not used or done any research on.

Not my tool. And not my fault you haven't encountered drives which aggressively retry reads rather than return errors.

Seeing as the issue of cloning a failing drive successfully is now resolved with industry standard, openly available tooling, perhaps instead of confusing matters further you could just go learn about that.

[m k]

Then I could use something like gparted or similar tool to delete the part of the second partition and enlarge the first partition to fill the entire 500 GB of the SSD. Correct?

Don't enlarge the partition from outside Windows. Windows is not smart, and will break.

Yes, luckily nowadays Windows has a simple tool for that.
But it doesn't move files, or didn't when I used it, so defrag may be needed.

[Postal2]

The tool you didn't even know existed, despite it being 20 years old, and that you've not used or done any research on.

I know program "Calibrate" from Norton which behavior exactly same and so old too.

And not my fault you haven't encountered drives which aggressively retry reads rather than return errors.

Yes I encountered in the last century.

I told you, disk retries himself when lose track, but in this case soldar cannot clone without errors.