Question : Copy Folder / Files From Corrupt Disk In Linux (Kubuntu)

Hello All -

I have a 1Tb drive that's about to die.  On it, I have ~490G of info.  I just wiped and recreated an NTFS partition on a different external 1Tb drive (connected via eSata) and am trying to copy all of the folders and files over.

The problem is that when I try to copy it all using the default file copy handler in Kubuntu (GUI), it gives me an error when it gets to a corrupt file, then stops the entire process.

What method may I use (command in terminal, software, etc) to start a file copy in linux where I can start a copy of all of there files and if it gets to a corrupt one, that it will simply skip over it?  It would be a plus if instead of skipping these files to copy what it can or to retry it a few times, but I'll take what I can get.

Thanks!

Answer : Copy Folder / Files From Corrupt Disk In Linux (Kubuntu)

--1.  You could copy the files into a TAR archive using the "--ignore-failed-read" option

--2. If the files are mostly gathered in one partition, you could clone the whole device with 'dd' or even better, with 'ddrescue' (http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/ddrescue/)
Note: Use ddrescue with the '-n' option like this:
ddrescue -n /dev/hdaX /dev/hdbX logfile

Note2: The target device needs to be formatted like the source device for this to work

Note3: More info on ddrescue here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html#Examples
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk

Note4: Use ddrescue from the Parted Magic boot CD: http://partedmagic.com


--3.  By far the easiest solution for copying and recovering at the same time would be this free tool:
http://www.r-tt.com/data_recovery_linux/

It requires to be run from within Windows, but since you formatted your target drive Ntfs, I guess you will have a Windows system available that you could hook the corrupt drive to.