How to create a full byte for byte clone of my drive?

[Behemoth187]

I am looking to do some data recovery from an old seagate barracuda 7200.11. I have connected the drive to my new build pc and i've been advised to fully clone the drive before i attempt any data recovery which will probably be done with r-studio and getdataback which were recommended to me. To clone the drive i've been advised to use macrium reflect, hddguru or ddrescue, does this sound like the proper way to go about cloning the drive? I have no experience so any help or extra advice would be appreciated, thanks.

[TheGlenlivet]

34 minutes ago, Behemoth187 said:

I am looking to do some data recovery from an old seagate barracuda 7200.11. I have connected the drive to my new build pc and i've been advised to fully clone the drive before i attempt any data recovery which will probably be done with r-studio and getdataback which were recommended to me. To clone the drive i've been advised to use macrium reflect, hddguru or ddrescue, does this sound like the proper way to go about cloning the drive? I have no experience so any help or extra advice would be appreciated, thanks.

I've used Macrium with success, but only on working drives.  I have no experience with Data Recovery.

[SpookyCitrus]

@Behemoth187 Macrium Reflect and Paragon are my go to cloning programs. Macrium is more customizable and you can resize the partitions before the clone is started usually it's easier to use if the drives are different sizes , but it does have issues with copying failing HDDs. Paragon is more of a raw copier, so not really customizable it just sector by sector copies the information. With Paragon the drives have to be equal in size or the target disk has to be bigger if the target disk is smaller the clone will still go through but you won't have any  of the information it couldn't fit and if you do get everything but the target disk is bigger you will need to use a partition resizing program to resize the partitions to fit the bigger drive.

 

As a last resort if the drive is bad enough even Paragon doesn't work I've used Roadkill's Rawcopy with great success on really bad drives. It's the same as Paragon where the target disk needs to be equal size or bigger and then the partitions will need to be resized with another program to use the full space of the new drive.

[Behemoth187]

43 minutes ago, TheGlenlivet said:

I've used Macrium with success, but only on working drives.  I have no experience with Data Recovery.

The drive is working, sorry if i was unclear.

[Behemoth187]

42 minutes ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Macrium Reflect and Paragon are my go to cloning programs. Macrium is more customizable and you can resize the partitions before the clone is started usually it's easier to use if the drives are different sizes , but it does have issues with copying failing HDDs. Paragon is more of a raw copier, so not really customizable it just sector by sector copies the information. With Paragon the drives have to be equal in size or the target disk has to be bigger if the target disk is smaller the clone will still go through but you won't have any  of the information it couldn't fit. 

Ok so partitions and formatting confuse me. Will i have to do anything to the drive prior to cloning it?

[SpookyCitrus]

5 minutes ago, Behemoth187 said:

Ok so partitions and formatting confuse me. Will i have to do anything to the drive prior to cloning it?

Nope, make sure it's plugged in and run the software you choose.

I do have a question though.

Can you view/access the files in the drive? Why are you needing to do data recovery in the first place?

If the drive is wiped and there are no partitions on it then cloning it won't work.

[Kedohawyr]

As someone who regularly recommends Macrum Reflect it's probably adaquant but not the ideal solution for this kind of job. If you do use it you need to be sure to go into the advanced options when doing clone or image (image might be better so you can mount it as a read only drive rather then risk the cloned copy having sectors overwritten too) and be sure to unselect the default intelligent sector copy option, you want the other option which should mention forensic copy or assessment.

[Behemoth187]

4 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Nope, make sure it's plugged in and run the software you choose.

I do have a question though.

Can you view/access the files in the drive? Why are you needing to do data recovery in the first place?

If the drive is wiped and there are no partitions on it then cloning it won't work.

I "lost" a lot of music and pictures years ago and the drive is an absolute mess of duplicates and subfolders that is just chaotic. After taking the pc to a "pro" it came back even worse so it's just been mainly left alone for years. I can view what's in the drive but i want to run a thorough scan just to make sure there isn't a lot of files hiding somewhere in the confusion

[Behemoth187]

4 hours ago, Kedohawyr said:

As someone who regularly recommends Macrum Reflect it's probably adaquant but not the ideal solution for this kind of job. If you do use it you need to be sure to go into the advanced options when doing clone or image (image might be better so you can mount it as a read only drive rather then risk the cloned copy having sectors overwritten too) and be sure to unselect the default intelligent sector copy option, you want the other option which should mention forensic copy or assessment.

Ok, do i need to mount the drive in order to use macrum or can i just select the drive to scan? My only experience with mounting a drive was with the same drive on Linux mint.

[SpookyCitrus]

15 minutes ago, Behemoth187 said:

I "lost" a lot of music and pictures years ago and the drive is an absolute mess of duplicates and subfolders that is just chaotic. After taking the pc to a "pro" it came back even worse so it's just been mainly left alone for years. I can view what's in the drive but i want to run a thorough scan just to make sure there isn't a lot of files hiding somewhere in the confusion

The data recovery programs you mentioned earlier are for finding files previously deleted or searching for files on a HDD that is accidentally wiped or the partitions are non access-able. If I were you and just looking for lost or specific files that aren't deleted but just lost in other files or in some random folder somewhere I'd try Winderstat first, it shows specific file types and their locations, it's really useful 

[Behemoth187]

1 hour ago, SpookyCitrus said:

The data recovery programs you mentioned earlier are for finding files previously deleted or searching for files on a HDD that is accidentally wiped or the partitions are non access-able. If I were you and just looking for lost or specific files that aren't deleted but just lost in other files or in some random folder somewhere I'd try Winderstat first, it shows specific file types and their locations, it's really useful 

Ok, i'll try that first but can i then still use macrium or paragon after because there may well be files that were wiped or partitions that are non accessible? i simply have no idea what's lurking in that mess. I am only using these programs because i want to use r-studio and getdataback after i have copied the drive. I was advised to do this because of the age of the drive and it's reputation for being a pretty crap drive. Also, if i keep running these scans, does that put a lot of stress on the drive?

[SpookyCitrus]

5 minutes ago, Behemoth187 said:

Ok, i'll try that first but can i then still use macrium or paragon after because there may well be files that were wiped or partitions that are non accessible? i simply have no idea what's lurking in that mess. I am only using these programs because i want to use r-studio and getdataback after i have copied the drive. I was advised to do this because of the age of the drive and it's reputation for being a pretty crap drive. Also, if i keep running these scans, does that put a lot of stress on the drive?

Yeah Winderstat shouldn't affect the information stored on the drive just show you where it is. Just make sure which ever program you do it is a sector by sector copy. Usually when I do a drive I need to do data recovery on after the clone I use Rawcopy by Roadkill, or make sure you use sector by sector copy in macrium.

[Behemoth187]

2 hours ago, SpookyCitrus said:

Yeah Winderstat shouldn't affect the information stored on the drive just show you where it is. Just make sure which ever program you do it is a sector by sector copy. Usually when I do a drive I need to do data recovery on after the clone I use Rawcopy by Roadkill, or make sure you use sector by sector copy in macrium.

Is a sector by sector copy called a forensic sector copy in macrium? Also, is there any advantage to rawcopy or just a preference?

[seagate_surfer]

If you used a defective power supply or cables and can't even turn on the unit, then you should put it in the hands of a professional, of course, this is only if you need to have that information. Then, if the drive is dead but can still be detected, you can use DeepSpar Disk Imager but this is more like cases when you need to extract data bit by bit and putting it in a new drive and that takes hours!

 

If the problem is not really a hardware problem and the drive haven't fully failed yet, you really do not need to make copies bit by bit or cloning, pay, change the PCB or more complex things, if it can be detected but is asking to format like this:

 

Just download any free recovery options like EaseUS, Recuva, R-STUDIO and extract the data...

[Behemoth187]

1 hour ago, seagate_surfer said:

If you used a defective power supply or cables and can't even turn on the unit, then you should put it in the hands of a professional, of course, this is only if you need to have that information. Then, if the drive is dead but can still be detected, you can use DeepSpar Disk Imager but this is more like cases when you need to extract data bit by bit and putting it in a new drive and that takes hours!

 

If the problem is not really a hardware problem and the drive haven't fully failed yet, you really do not need to make copies bit by bit or cloning, pay, change the PCB or more complex things, if it can be detected but is asking to format like this:

 

Just download any free recovery options like EaseUS, Recuva, R-STUDIO and extract the data...

I've made a image copy of the drive in macrium which didn't take as long as i had expected, 500gb in 1h15m seems like not long to me but who knows. I'm now running getdataback on a thorough scan. Next i'll run r-studio and hopefully i will discover some lost data, thanks for the info.

[seagate_surfer]

10 hours ago, Behemoth187 said:

I've made a image copy of the drive in macrium which didn't take as long as i had expected, 500gb in 1h15m seems like not long to me but who knows. I'm now running getdataback on a thorough scan. Next i'll run r-studio and hopefully i will discover some lost data, thanks for the info.

Sure! And good luck, wish you the best...