Has anyone dealt with anything like this?This is a classic "hard-to-google" problem because there are a million charlatans trying to take advantage of the no-backup-numpties who are desperate to get back their almost complete first novel, thesis, or kids baby photos.
Thank you everyone! You guys are awesome. I managed to do it with DMDE and direct sector copy.
I also realized how horrible Google has become. None of the tools you suggested came up in my many searches. Except for Macrium Reflect which doesn't do sector-by-sector copy.
A dirty tactic that many sites use is to write a "fake" forum post about their own product and answer they own questions. They make the whole thing look like legitimate and of course Google indexes it and this makes 90% of search results useless.
I'd be interested to know just what the FS structure looks like, and why on earth the designers wouldn't use something off the shelf.
I've heard of some exotic PVR's where they corrupt the partition table so the ordinary windows user can't copy the sacred files on it.
I wouldn't recommend buying anything. There is certainly a linux tool that will work.I recommend starting with
As suggested: dd, is the obvious choice. One thing I would say about dd though; depending on the size of the HDD you're copying it can be worth while experimenting with the block size option. Doesn't effect the end result, but may reduce the time required by a bunch.
dd [...] can be a double-edged sword.
#dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdaa few times before you learn to read what you type before you press go. :)
dd [...] can be a double-edged sword.
True. Most *nix command line tools will not ask if you are sure you want to shoot your grandma.
Personally, I'd rather trust myself to read my own script, than rely on some random internet windows software. YMMV.
You only#dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdaa few times before you learn to read what you type before you press go. :)
Also... For anyone following... Don't copy pasta that... It's not a useful command.
Exactly. Which is why most of my advice related to dd use in #14 (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/anyone-knows-how-to-clone-a-hdd-without-any-partitions/msg4364785/#msg4364785) was about how to make sure your source and target devices are the ones you think they are.dd [...] can be a double-edged sword.
True. Most *nix command line tools will not ask if you are sure you want to shoot your grandma.
A vote for dd here as well. I've tried all kinds of crap backup tools for windows and none are good for professional use. The foolproof way is using dd. Now I always use a Linux machine for creating master copy hard disks/files (for production use in a factory).FYI, DMDE runs on Linux ...
Yeah better be very VERY careful when using linux dd. It can wreck all of the data if the wrong parameters are put in.
My own solution is "EaseUS Todo Backup Free" it has a horrible name, but it can clone drives 1:1. Most of the reason i use it is that it can also resize partitions afterwards, so it comes pretty useful in moving the OS from a HDD to a SSD.
Another useful tip is that WinHex has the ability to open disk drives in raw form, letting you explore the contents of a drive as raw sectors and copy things around by hand. It can be used to do things like manually fix a damaged partition table or do forensic analysis on data left behind by the filesystem.
I haven't seen anything that Clonezilla can't handle, myself. You can put it on a bootable USB drive, no need to install anything, run Linux, etc.
Avoid the commercial Windows tools like Macrium, they are all basically malware these days. Intentionally designed to be difficult to uninstall.
ddrescue might be of some value if you wanted to analyze the data.Ddrescue is purely a cloning tool. It doesn't analyse anything. There is a companion utility (ddrutility) which can use ddrescue's log file to determine which, if any, files are affected by bad sectors. This utility was written by the author of HDDSuperClone.
This HDD doesn't seem to have a file system which is recognised by anything.ddrescue might be of some value if you wanted to analyze the data.Ddrescue is purely a cloning tool. It doesn't analyse anything. There is a companion utility (ddrutility) which can use ddrescue's log file to determine which, if any, files are affected by bad sectors. This utility was written by the author of HDDSuperClone.
This HDD doesn't seem to have a file system which is recognised by anything.ddrescue might be of some value if you wanted to analyze the data.Ddrescue is purely a cloning tool. It doesn't analyse anything. There is a companion utility (ddrutility) which can use ddrescue's log file to determine which, if any, files are affected by bad sectors. This utility was written by the author of HDDSuperClone.
Sector by sector copy worked just fine.
Agilent has removed all software/firmware updates for this unit from the site. So if the HDD fails, that is it, the unit becomes unusable. I copied into an IDE SSD and the instrument is now safe!
Sector by sector copy worked just fine.
Agilent has removed all software/firmware updates for this unit from the site. So if the HDD fails, that is it, the unit becomes unusable. I copied into an IDE SSD and the instrument is now safe!
on the risk of hacking this topic : since all the file system securities are basically handled by the file system driver , is there a driver that ignores the security ?What file system, and what host OS are you talking about? With a Linux host, as long as you have root, it will let you do anything to mounted file system. Also, when mounting an NTFS filesystem on Linux, it allows you to specify which Linux user should be the owner and what the Linux permissions will be: see the documentation for the mount command (https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man8/mount.8.html#mount%20options%20for%20ntfs).
The file system says file xyz belongs to user yadda, or has certain bits turned on (like it he dos days , archive, read only , system , hidden etc )
This is all by convention and handled in the file system driver. swap out the driver for a version that ignores all this hoopla and you can read write anything you want.
i ran into a situation on an old computer of mine where i had two logins. i was admin on both. i wanted to delete one of them and no matter what it tried i could not delete one directory. you need admin permission. i am admin. access denied ... it was a google drive shadow folder. i finally found some obscure command line operation that could reset the flags so i could access the files.
having a file system driver that goes "screw all these security locks, i'm not respecting them" would solve such issues.
What file system, and what host OS are you talking about? With a Linux host, as long as you have root, it will let you do anything to mounted file system. Also, when mounting an NTFS filesystem on Linux, it allows you to specify which Linux user should be the owner and what the Linux permissions will be: see the documentation for the mount command (https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man8/mount.8.html#mount%20options%20for%20ntfs).any file system any os.
any file system any os.
that doesn't work on a windows machine : can't ready foreign file systems and if the drive is ntfs it wants to enforce the permissions.
When Windows mounts another system's NTFS file system, it does 'respect' the existing permissions, just like Linux, etc. However, if you're logged in as an administrator on the OS, then you can simply seize ownership of the affected files/folders at which point you can change the permissions as necessary so you can access them. The equivalent process in Linux might be 'sudo chown' and 'sudo chmod' for example.Linux also allows one to mount the filesystem with an arbitrary mapping between NTFS users and groups and their Linux counterparts, with uid= and gid= as shorthand for mapping them all to one user and one group. By default, the silent option is used on NTFS mounts, which causes the 'sudo chown' and 'sudo chmod' to silently do nothing on such mounts, unless an arbitrary mapping has been set. Also, the actual default is to map all users and groups to the current user. (If you do do 'sudo mount', the current user will be root, so then specifying that explicitly via '-o uid=$(id -un),gid=$(id -gn)' is needed.)
i ran into a situation on an old computer of mine where i had two logins. i was admin on both. i wanted to delete one of them and no matter what it tried i could not delete one directory. you need admin permission. i am admin. access denied ... it was a google drive shadow folder. i finally found some obscure command line operation that could reset the flags so i could access the files.
Sector by sector copy worked just fine.
Agilent has removed all software/firmware updates for this unit from the site. So if the HDD fails, that is it, the unit becomes unusable. I copied into an IDE SSD and the instrument is now safe!
Sector by sector copy worked just fine.
Agilent has removed all software/firmware updates for this unit from the site. So if the HDD fails, that is it, the unit becomes unusable. I copied into an IDE SSD and the instrument is now safe!
then you can simply seize ownership of the affected files/folders at which point you can change the permissions as necessary so you can access them.And in that lies the problem. i do NOT want to modify the file system or permissions ! Just read the file without altering anything on the drive. it should leave no traces. the drive needs to be treated as read-only.
Agilent has removed all software/firmware updates for this unit from the site. So if the HDD fails, that is it, the unit becomes unusable. I copied into an IDE SSD and the instrument is now safe!
And in that lies the problem. i do NOT want to modify the file system or permissions ! Just read the file without altering anything on the drive. it should leave no traces. the drive needs to be treated as read-only.
i do NOT want to modify the file system or permissions ! Just read the file without altering anything on the drive. it should leave no traces. the drive needs to be treated as read-only.Clone it first, and do your alterations and examinations on a read-write copy?
it would be nice to be able to ditch all that stuff. have a bootable usb stick with a drive imaging tool that can save the drive image , and a file explorer where i can quickly grab some stuff and copy it off.
what's stopping me is finding a ready made iso that can do that !it would be nice to be able to ditch all that stuff. have a bootable usb stick with a drive imaging tool that can save the drive image , and a file explorer where i can quickly grab some stuff and copy it off.
What's stopping you?