Quote:
Originally Posted by Jope
Use DD in Linux or Windows to make dumps of the disks and then start working from those. Check out what is in the beginning with a hex editor.. If the filesystem starts right away, you can try adding the images as a normal hdf.
http://www.chrysocome.net/dd
Write protect your zip disks before doing anything to them if you haven't done this several times before (and it doesn't hurt even then). |
I'd second that. Definitely create image files of the disks (if possible) rather than risk writing to them accidentally or on purpose. (Though since Zip disks don't have a hardware write protect tab, write-protecting them does involve writing to the disk!)
For creating disk images, a good solution is to use Helix, a bootable Linux CD designed for forensics use. It's guaranteed not to write to the disk. You can get that from
http://www.e-fense.com/helix/
There are utilities for reading disks with bad sectors. I think sg_dd is one, it's probably on the Helix CD. Most normal "dd" programs abort as soon as a bad sector is encountered, so they are not suitable if there are any bad/unreadable sectors on the disk.
I've had good results recovering data from Zip disks using the Helix CD and sg_dd. It can even sometimes partly recover bad/unreadable sectors (it uses the SCSI READ LONG command).