Re: [sleuthkit-users] Lost a folder on my hard drive somehow can I recover?

[Kaya S. <Sam...@ne...>]

Many thanks to all the suggestions!

My setup is as follows:

Hp Notebook with 320GB Drive running in Triple Boot configuration and 
many VBox based VM Images

Hotway 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure with eSATA

Seagate 200GB drive

I guess what I'm gona have to do since I have a PIV FreeBSD 8.0 based 
server with a 40GB drive; is go get a SATA controller for it with a 250 
or 300GB HD - if a controller exists for PCI. Then use the Gentoo based 
Recovery CD to format the new drive and create the disk image.

It's so hard not having enough disk space to play with really.... :-(

I always seem to have this problem of data loss with USB and IDE/UDMA 
disks, meaning that I need to find a viable H/W based backup solution of 
round 12 terrabytes.

Again thanks for everything guys and will start working out what and how 
to do this physically now!!

Best regards to all,

Kaya



On 05/08/2010 06:46 AM, Gary Funck wrote:
> On 05/07/10 13:04:07, Kaya Saman wrote:
>    
>>     On 05/04/2010 05:12 PM, Kaya Saman wrote:
>>       I've got an external eSATA 200GB hard drive formatted to ext3 of which I
>>       was using till now via USB2.0 connection.
>>
>>       I recently hooked the drive up to my FreeBSD 8.0 32bit based server in
>>       ReadOnly mode upon mount in order to stream the information across my
>>       network so that I wouldn't have cables flying around the place.
>>
>>       Anyhow, yesterday I attached the hard drive and started watching my
>>       downloaded TV show. I noticed something went out of whack after I
>>       clicked incremental files and the video shown was not linear. - What I'm
>>       trying to say is that the file name didn't match the file played back!!
>>      
> [...]
>
> I'd start with the hardware.  Does it improve/stay the same
> when you hook it back up via e-SATA?  If it is not possible to
> do that with your current hardware, then consider removing
> the drive and direct connecting it.
>
> The suggestions by the other posters to make a drive image
> is a good one.  You will have both a backup and you'll
> be able to run various recovery tools on that image.
> You can even try mounting that image in read-only
> loop back mode, and see whether you're still experiencing
> problems.  If everything works fine, then it suggests
> that the hardware isn't working.  Of course, if you
> are able to image the drive completely that suggests
> the drive is working at some level, and the failure
> you're seeing becomes more difficult to explain.
> That's why I'd recommend direct-connecting it,
> and trying to make an image, pronto.
>
> We have seen USB/eSATA enclosures fail in some
> rather unpredictable ways.  One common failure
> is the small fan that is present on some enclosures
> quits spinning and either the controller electronics,
> or drive overheat ... leading to erratic
> results.  Power supplies (wall warts) often
> seem to be the weakest link.  And those self-powered
> USB drives, even with the two USB connectors
> can run into problems at the margin.  Using the
> supplied PSU usually fixes that problem.  Finally,
> we've seen problems with Firewire/USB add on PCI
> cards - they worked fine for a year/two and then
> just quit working, or had glitches.
>
>
>