BLU's server crash and data recovery

[Jerry Feldman]

The first thing I am going to try to do is to run dd to copy the drive
images to 2 additional 320GB drives we have.
The second thing I will do is to run Spinrite on the original drives. I
have 3 computers that use 320s, 2 are Dells with Hardware RAID and 1 is
an Intel without. Right now the drives are all in Dell carriers, so I
will try the DD under dyne-bolic. If I am unable to access the bad drive
because of the RAID controller I will then go to the Dells. If I am
successful in making copies, I will download and pay for Spinrite. It's
worth it to spend $90 of BLUs money to try the recovery. If it fails it
fails. The BLU listserv archives are for the most part backed up on
Nabble. The other 25 or so listservs with archives will be SOL. I moved
the system out of my boss' office and into a spare so I can fire up the
systems without anyone else getting ear damage (I have ear plugs).

Essentially we had 3-320GB SCSIs, but when I looked at them on the
Intel, only 2 had a partition table, so I think that 1 may be unused. In
any case I only have 2 spares. If I need to back up all 3, I'll need to
dd to another storage solution.

Ben Eisenbraun wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 12:06:06PM -0400, Bill Bogstad wrote:
>   
>> Look up ddrescue.
>>     
>
> From Jerry's email, it looks like the data is on a RAID volume built with 
> a hardware RAID controller (probably PERC4 or so, but Jerry didn't say).  
> If the controller says the volume is in a failed state, I seriously 
> doubt that it will let you mount it, and I don't think running dd on the 
> individual disks connected to a standard SCSI controller is going to give 
> you anything of value.
>
> Am I wrong?  I can't think of any way that 'dd if=/dev/sdx of=/dev/NULL' 
> is going to prove or disprove anything.  If might possibly prove that the 
> motor on the disk will spin the platters, but given that you're throwing
> the data away, how would you know?
>
> Disk manufacturers make free utilities for testing their disks.  If you
> suspect a hardware failure, I would use one of those.  The added benefit is 
> that if the disk is toast, it will spit out the RMA code you need to get 
> a replacement.
>