[tjwhite]

Here it is:

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB 250059330016
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000080

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 6 1280 10240000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 * 1280 30075 231295156 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 30075 30402 2620416 f W95 Ext'd(LBA)
/dev/sda5 30076 30402 2619392 dd Unknown

Disk /dev/sdb: 640.1 GB, 640135028736
255 Heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xacdd9b22

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 77825 625129281 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Note that there is no "*" under the boot column on the external drive... maybe that's a problem?

[saikee]

The "*" is not used by Linux. It is an indicator known as the booting flag. The "*" means it is in an "on" position. Only MS systems use it because every MS system's MBR search the 4 primaries (sda1 to sda4) for the "*" and boot the one that got it.

I couldn't see anything wrong with the partitions.

If the sda has a problem the process can get stopped but the error would indicate an access problem. Your error message was the space was used up. I suggest you try it again and report the full error message.

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=32256 conv=noerror

Your hard disk has to be connected internally to get the 57.9 MB/s transfer speed reported in your last post. Your output file if exactly as you have typed and not what I have suggested then "of=/sdb" means it is to be a file called sdb inside your / root directory. If you ran it from a Live CD then 1.6Gb full space is your ram. Therefore you were not cloning from hard disk to hard disk but from hard disk to internal ram!

If you are not sure just copy and paste the command posted here.

Remember with a USB connection you should allow for about 10 to 15 Mb/s transfer rate. dd will stop when the source 250Gb disk has been exhausted. My estimate is it will take between 5 to 7 hours so be prepared.

dd does not give out any information but the command is working flat out if the LED keeps flickering in both the PC and the external hard disk.

Good luck this time!

[tjwhite]

Hi,

Just wanted to say thank you as last night I was able to copy over the corrupted hard drive. I have recovered all the valuable files I was worried about losing. Really appreciate all the help you have given me.

[saikee]

You are welcome.

The information I gave you is what I received from others.

Unlike the proprietary systems you can understand what you do in Linux. You did the simplest thing with a hard disk by copying the binary bits sector by sector from one location to anther. That I thought would have been a basic operation any operating system should provide.