Re: [NTLK] OT - Beware 10.4.9 Update

>
> Any Help? How to recover data? What is dd?
> If someone could help me with dd I could try. I am not good at Unix.
>
>
I concur with the general consensus that this is a hardware problem
unrelated to any updates. It seems a bit strange though, as most drive
failures announce themselves well in advance, at least in my experience.
"dd" is a similar to a DOS Rawrite utility. It is useful for making boot
floppies and such, but is not always best for hard disk work. I would
suggest the "cp" command might be better suited, but first you have to get
the drive spinning somehow.

First the obvious: check the physical connections to the drive. If the
power hookup is loose, no amount of cajoling will get it spinning.
Likewise, a loose interface connection will also cause problems. I have had
both problems manifest themselves in my own machines. If you have had the
drive disconnected for some reason, check that the cable is on correctly.
Just wiggling the connection might do the trick. If that doesn't work,
check for bent pins.

If all is well, I have heard that sick drives can be temporarily revived by
placing them in the freezer for a while. I am skeptical of this method, but
if it works, it works. Be careful about bringing a frozen drive into a
humid environment. Condensation will kill it quickly when powered up.
Maybe bring the entire machine into a cool dry environment if this method is
used.

In any case, a drive failure is seldom temporary. Back up your data and be
prepared to replace the drive at any moment.

If you get it spinning, you should be able to use the "cp" command something
like this (in sequence)

First:
su
when prompted, enter the root password. Doing this as the super user will
avoid any difficulties with permissions, though you may have to restore
permissions after copying the files.

Then:

mount/mnt/hdd

mount/mnt/(destination drive)

cp -rf /home/username (destination)

I am assuming here that you are attempting to backup data in your home
directory. System files can be restored from hard installation media. If
you have to do that, do a full install with a new disk and then copy the
files from the home directory into the new home directory. You'll have to
put the full path into the command where I have "(destination)".

The above command will copy your entire home directory with all
subdirectories recursively into the destination directory on the new disk.
It will probably arrive with "root" as the owner, so you will have to either
use a "chown" command or a GUI equivalent.

This can be a bit tricky, but I was able to pull it off myself with a sick
drive. Live Linux distributions such as Tom's rtbt have all the utilities
needed to do this kind of surgery without using the Mac OS at all. Be
careful using this kind of utility, though, as the root user, you can easily
shoot yourself in the foot.

Good luck,

Dale

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