Preparation steps for Data Recovery

[maboroshi]

Preparation steps for Data Recovery
based on advice from lilrofl and bad_brain

So you want to recover some data from your usb thumb drive, usb external hard drive, or any sata/ide/whatever drive connected to your computer.

The preparation steps I am taking I am outlining here and this is assuming the hard drive isn't physically broken.

There is a possible (if lucky) step you can try before this if the hard drive is physically damaged and that is to put it in the Freezer for 24 hrs, then attempt the following.

Step 1: Making a full image of the drive in question.

The program I am using for this is called Roadkil's DiskImage you can find it here http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=12

In order to create our image we select the Store Image tab, select the drive we want to make an image of then save the .IMG file to a place on one of our larger hard drives.

But we are not actually going to work on the image we just made, that is just our base. After we finish creating the image we will copy it and work on that image.

Now we have our damaged disk, our image based off that damaged disk, and our copy of that image.

Step 2: Mounting

Now we will mount the copied image. For that I am using a simple free program called virtual clone drive. For me this tool works fine, I am sure some of you may know of others.

The link to download http://static.slysoft.com/SetupVirtualCloneDrive.exe

The software is installed and the disk images made right click the working image and mount it using the virtual clone drive tool.

This working image is what we will use to recover data from

That was essentially the initial set up. The tools for the actual Data Recovery are TestDisk and PhotoRec

The TestDisk and PhotoRec tools are invaluable tools for Data Recovery and the documentation they provide is really good. I would say to look over these tools to find information on various recovery methods based on your needs

This was more or less just documentation for myself. But I hope you enjoyed it

Documentation
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step

Software
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

[ph0bYx]

Nice tutorial, mabs!

[maboroshi]

Thanks man! Would be cool if Lilrofl spent a bit of time writing a tutorial on Data Recovery. He has a decent amount of knowledge on this. He said he thought there was one laying around somewhere in here. Will have to ask him to find it

[bad_brain]

good one buddy!

you still should fiddle around a bit with Clonezilla when you have time. ok, it's not REALLY focused on data recovery, but in worst case scenarios like hardware problems it can still be useful in that context because you can copy the data "low level" without Windows bitching about bad sectors (for example) and refusing the job.

[maboroshi]

Good advice man! Definitely makes sense to use, if not in all cases. That tool I was using was just my initial tests, and was more just as a simple method for me to document the initial undertakings I needed to achieve. if that makes sense.

Great advice man!

For those interested.

http://clonezilla.org/

Definitely worth it's weight in gold