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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Create image from SSD with I/O errors (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have an SSD from a PC I no longer use. I need to keep a copy of all its data for backup purposes. The problem is that dd reports "Input/output error"s when copying from the drive. There seem to be 20-30 of them in the entire 240GB drive so it is likely that most or all of my data is still intact.

What I'm concerned about is whether these input/output errors can cause issues in the image outside of the particular bad blocks. How does dd handle these errors? Will they be eg zeroed in the output or will the simply be missing? If they are simply missing will the filesystem be corrupted because the location of data has been shifted? If so, what tool should I be using to save what can be saved?

EDIT: Thanks for the help guys. I went with ddrescue and it reports to have saved 99.99% of the data. I guess there could still be significant loss if the 0.01% happens to be on filesystem structures, but in this case maybe I can use an undeleter or similar utility to see if I can get back the files. In any case, I can work at my leisure now that I have a copy of the data on non-failing storage.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I already have done an rsync copy. I noticed that some files failed to transfer and I thought that maybe the drive is failing. Wanting to attempt to debug and possibly rescue some more data (eg parts of big files that failed to transfer completely) without messing with the original copy, I tried dd and that's how we got here.

Also this was a Windows system that was used daily by a family member and has a lot of installed background/tray services with saved logins. I imagine I could figure out everything there is to keep in an rsync clone, but it might be easier to have an image that I can try to mount to a VM and inspect "internally".

So I don't need the clone strictly speaking but it would be nice to have. Plus, I would like to know the answer for the future as well.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

A good point to suggest an alternate OS if they have no specific proprietary apps they rely on. Windows is a janky mess these days.