[ale] SOLVED (probably) (NOT!) Re: Rescuing an OS X HD from Linux - partition table hosed

[JK]

On 1/15/2010 11:39 AM, David Ritchie wrote:
> If you have a copy of Spinrite (www.grc.com), I have seen it pull off
> some miraculous saves - not that I would trust the drive any more, but
> it would allow you to get your data off the drive. Don't
> expect it to be really fast at the highest levels, however. You would
> need a PC to run it on - it is
> only looking at readability of the blocks, and is not  file system
> specific... so it should work with a
> mac disk too.... spinrite isn't real cheap ($90 or so) but it is well
> respected.
>
> You might also simply go buy another drive,  and do a quick install of
> the OS to test.  You are probably headed in that direction anyway
> (unless you have AppleCare), so you might as well make the plunge...


Hmm, I've read about SpinRite before, but this is the first time I've
heard good things about it.  If my current imaging attempt fails I
may possibly give it a try.

Copying individual files of interest seems to be a fruitful approach.
I managed to rescue all the little, important files (mostly .RTFs
and .ODTs) by just copying them.  Now I'm running ddrescue to try
to get a decent image of the remainder of the drive. (My previous
imaging attempt used plain "dd", and didn't work very well.)

I am wondering if "hdparm"-ing the drive to the slowest settings
would be a good thing to do?  Like, turning off DMA and so forth?

Thanks to all,

-- JK

-- 
As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations
it is incapable of solving approaches zero. -- V, Order of the Stick