Minor disaster recovery

[Alex Hewitt]

Ben Scott wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 8:16 AM, Tyson Sawyer<tyson at j3.org> wrote:
>   
>> The filesystem on the system drive is (or should be) backed up.
>>     
>
>   You need to explain that using a lot more words.  :)
>
>   (e.g., how you back it up, using what software, how often, what you
> backup, how you test the backups, when your last backup was made,
> what's changed since then, etc.)
>
>   
>> We would like to recover the system rather than rebuild to avoid having
>> to figure out all the applications we had installed and figure out how
>> we had them configured.
>>     
>
>   As Jim Kuzdrall said, I would avoid trying to run a system copied
> from a drive that's known to be faulty.  You might copy a corrupt
> file.
>
>   If you have a known-good backup of the system, from before the disk
> started to fail, restoring *that* to a new disk and running is okay.
>
>   (I don't think Ubuntu keeps checksums of installed files by default
> (anyone know?).  So there's no way to verify the integrity of the
> installed system (like "rpm --verify --all").  And even with package
> manager checksums, that won't help you with corrupt data files, config
> files, or files installed outside of the package manager ("make
> install").)
>
>   
>>  There is a reasonable chance that we can
>> reboot the old drive again, but I have not yet tried.
>>     
>
>   Don't try.  As Jeff Smith said, the more you tinker, the worse
> things usually get.
>
>   If you intend to attempt to recover data from the failed disk, I
> would suggest making a block level image, like Jeff said.  But I'd
> recommend using the "dd_rescue" and "dd_rhelp" utilities to do so.
> dd_rhelp will supervise dd_rescue, and use it to recovery easily
> readable blocks first, and then try harder for the remaining blocks.
>
>   Once you've got the block-level image, you can examine it at your
> leisure, without worrying about if the drive is about to die for good.
>
>   
>> We will attempt to find a replacement drive today.  We live in
>> Brookline, NH and work in Bedford, MA.  Any suggestions on stores or
>> drive brands?
>>     
>
>   All hard disk drive brands are about equal.
>   

Pretty much. What is different is how easy it is to get 
support/replacement. It's easy with Western Digital and Seagate. Other 
vendors manufacture a lot more than disk drives. Their web pages can be 
nearly impossible to navigate and their support might be downright 
useless. I would suggest that you investigate a manufacturer's support 
by visiting their web site(s). If you can't even find the support 
contact information you're going to be in tough shape if you need help. 
My favorite, from a  recent experience, is AMD. I had an out of the box 
defective processor and there was literally no way to contact their 
support. Fortunately I had bought the part from Newegg and they did 
their usual excellent job of handling my problem (RMA and bought a 
different processor model).
>   All big stores are about equal.  Staples, OfficeMax, Wal-Mart, etc.
>
>   Or find a local guy.  For buying commodity parts, parts is parts,
> but some find it nice to give business to the little guy, and having a
> good relationship with a local tech dealer is a useful thing for a
> home user.
>   

The local guy is almost always buying his parts from the same place you 
might buy the parts but his/her advantage would be getting a better 
price and more expeditious service.

-Alex

P.S. The markup on parts is usually very low unless it's somehow a 
proprietary part in which case you should be prepared to open your 
wallet wide.


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