Best method to offload files from failing SATA drive?

[daft.hermit]

I have a 2TB storage drive in my W7 64bit system that has suddenly developed errors (see attached image)

It's under warranty so the only thing I'm concerned about is recovering as much as I can of the 900-odd gigs of stored data and apps.

I've tried lots* of Windows-based copiers but they're all slowed up by Window's reluctance to deal with the ailing disk, so even a few gigs can take an hour or more. And then suddenly the disk can disappear from Windows altogether and doesn't come back until a reboot.

(*Windows copier, Teracopy Pro, O&O DiskImage, Unstoppable File Copier etc etc)

So I thought of XCopy or something similar in DOS.

However, I'm no expert with non-Windows solutions, so I'd appreciate advice.

Thanks for reading.

[DaveLembke]

Have you chilled the drive before trying to recover your data?

I have seen drives that fail quickly last longer to copy data when the drive has been chilled in the fridge before use. You want to make sure the drive stays dry while in fridge such as you can put it in a ziplock bag in fridge and chill it. Then have your computer open and ready to connect the drive. With computer off. Remove drive from fridge and connect it chilled. Then boot the system and go copying data. You might find that the drive will behave until it warms up and then cuts out again.

I have an IR Gun for measuring temperatures and a 500GB Maxtor drive I had was working for about an hour and then it would start to lag and delayed write errors. When i went to remove the drive I noticed that it was uncomfortably hot to the touch. Got my IR Gun to measure its temp and it was 158F at the hottest area around the motor and the PCB was in the 120-130F range. I was able to chill my drive and recover my important data before it would roast and cut out again.

Relocated sectors meas that an area of the drive is physically damaged and so you might find that some data you have is corrupt. If your lucky its not anything important that is trashed from damaged sectors.

XCOPY could be used to copy the data from this drive to a healthy drive. If your data is located in a single location you can xcopy the data from that target location and all files and subdirectories within it reconstructed onto a healthy drive ( as long as files are not in use )

My data on all my systems are located at C:\Data and so if i was to xcopy my data to a external drive or another internal drive I use something like this.

XCOPY C:\data\*.* F:\data\*.* /s/d/y/h

The switches I use here grab everything and if the destination already has an older version of this data  it will skip over files that are exact to date/time and name, any files that are newer than the files at the destination get overwritten at the destination. This XCOPY method also works best when you have a drive that runs for a while and then craps out. You can rechill the drive and then use the same instruction you used for your system and it will skip over files already transferred and it will transfer those that have not been transferred yet, basically picking up where it left off after skipping whats already been copied.

Note if your path has any spaces you will need to enclose the paths within "" such as XCOPY "C:\My Data\*.*" "F:\My Data\*.* /s/d/y/h" or you will get an error.

[patio]

You need to do it incrementally...in smaller chunks.  Priority files first...let the drive rest between operations and it should do fine.

[daft.hermit]

Thanks Dave. I've tried the freeze-drive technique a few times over the years - I'm a retired pc builder and serviceman - but never had much luck with it on customer's munted drives.

But heat's not the problem with my drive, as you can see from the temperature in the pic.

No, I think a DOS solution is likely best, but I've forgotten all I ever learned about those processes.

So I thought I'd ask the DOS experts . Mostly about the switches.

Like exclusions, say. There are a couple of 300GB sub-folders that I could probably leave for now, and try them again later when I've copied the more important stuff. Trouble is, they have long-ish names and I'm not sure Windows will let me rename them to something shorter.

Another thing is there's a lot of sub-folders within the source folder I want to copy from, and this source is also a sub-folder of the single-partition hard drive.

Here's a typical path:  S:\Download\Chrome stuff - where S is the ailing 2TB drive, Download is the 900G storage folder, and Chrome stuff a typical folder inside Download.
However, S:\Download\Music has a dozen or so subfolders.

Is there an exclusion switch? And maybe also one that will pass over uncopyable folders? After all, there are bad sectors on the drive 

PS: Thanks, Patio, just found your post. That's a good suggestion.

[DaveLembke]

Here is the help for xcopy. As far as excluding damaged files, I am not aware of an exclusion of that type unless the destination already had a copy of the file and a comparison made between current and last backup which can be done in a batch and a choice made as prompted to overwrite a file or not of one size and date/time with another. For the fact that you dont have a old backup to compare against I am not aware of any other way to test files for corrupt ones to skip over.


However you may have to add the /C switch to the xcopy to get it to skip when an error happens. This might be the solution for if the instruction encounters a file that cant be copied.

/C           Continues copying even if errors occur.

C:\>xcopy/?
Copies files and directory trees.

XCOPY source [destination] [/A | /M] [/D[:date]] [/P] [/S [/E]] [/V] [/W]
                           [/C] [/I] [/Q] [/F] [/L] [/G] [/H] [/R] [/T] [/U]
                           [/K] [/N] [/O] [/X] [/Y] [/-Y] [/Z] [/B] [/J]
                           [/EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...]

  source       Specifies the file(s) to copy.
  destination  Specifies the location and/or name of new files.
  /A           Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
               doesn't change the attribute.
  /M           Copies only files with the archive attribute set,
               turns off the archive attribute.
  /D:m-d-y     Copies files changed on or after the specified date.
               If no date is given, copies only those files whose
               source time is newer than the destination time.
  /EXCLUDE:file1[+file2][+file3]...
               Specifies a list of files containing strings.  Each string
               should be in a separate line in the files.  When any of the
               strings match any part of the absolute path of the file to be
               copied, that file will be excluded from being copied.  For
               example, specifying a string like \obj\ or .obj will exclude
               all files underneath the directory obj or all files with the
               .obj extension respectively.
  /P           Prompts you before creating each destination file.
  /S           Copies directories and subdirectories except empty ones.
  /E           Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones.
               Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
  /V           Verifies the size of each new file.
  /W           Prompts you to press a key before copying.
  /C           Continues copying even if errors occur.
  /I           If destination does not exist and copying more than one file,
               assumes that destination must be a directory.
  /Q           Does not display file names while copying.
  /F           Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
  /L           Displays files that would be copied.
  /G           Allows the copying of encrypted files to destination that does
               not support encryption.
  /H           Copies hidden and system files also.
  /R           Overwrites read-only files.
  /T           Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not
               include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes
               empty directories and subdirectories.
  /U           Copies only files that already exist in destination.
  /K           Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
  /N           Copies using the generated short names.
  /O           Copies file ownership and ACL information.
  /X           Copies file audit settings (implies /O).
  /Y           Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
               existing destination file.
  /-Y          Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an
               existing destination file.
  /Z           Copies networked files in restartable mode.
  /B           Copies the Symbolic Link itself versus the target of the link.
  /J           Copies using unbuffered I/O. Recommended for very large files.

The switch /Y may be preset in the COPYCMD environment variable.
This may be overridden with /-Y on the command line.

[Geek-9pm]

The OP may want to search the internet for:
Forensic Data Recovery

Some offer special software. But  others require you to ship the drive to them.
Prices vary. Watch out! 

Here's an article from one such company  that explains what might be done.
https://westerndatarecovery.com/services/forensic-data-recovery/

“Forensic techniques and expert knowledge are used to explain the current state of a digital artifact, such as a computer system, storage medium (e.g. hard disk or CD-ROM), or an electronic document (e.g. an email message or JPEG image).[3] The scope of a forensic analysis can vary from simple information retrieval to reconstructing a series of events.”

The process is often used in legal issues and can also be used to recover data from a bad drive.

[Lisa_maree]

Hi

When working with a drive with bad sectors or slow access it is better to make a raw copy to a known good drive of the same size or larger capacity. This drive needs to be blank. Also it is better to have both the failing drive and the known good drive attached direct to sata ports in the computer. Then do the copy from the good drive.
To make the raw copy :
A program which is easy to use is https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/
This will skip bad sectors and allows you to restart the drive if windows decides to shut the drive down.
Or there is the linux tool DDrescue .
Also there is the option of using a linux live disk which would allow you to copy and paste the files you wanted from the drive using file manager.
Because of the way Linux accesses the drive it copes better with bad sectors .
Parted magic, although not free boots on most systems. It also includes DDrescue and file explorer.      https://partedmagic.com/