Confirm the recovery partition is /dev/sdb2. Install the old hard disk in an external enclosure and connect to the computer.īoot the laptop with the Ubuntu live CD (10.10 in this case)Ĭonfirm the new empty drive is /dev/sda and the old drive is /dev/sdb. This method was created on a HP laptop, but can be adjusted for many other systems: After some additional testing, I worked out a method using an Ubuntu live CD. Booting the partition resulted in a useless black screen. The bad sectors were all in the main drive, so the data copy was successful. First, I tried cloning the recovery partition to the new drive and making it bootable/active. When the new drive arrived, rather than installing a different OS, I wanted to simply run the recovery software I knew was on her old drive. I ordered a new hard disk, and asked her for the recovery discs.
The majority of the data was luckily intact and accessible.
I put the drive in an external enclosure and was able to quickly backup all of her data. When powered, the drive responded, but would no longer boot into Windows. This caused a head crash and intermittent clicking noises indicating a broken hard disk.
Recently, while powered up, she knocked it off an ottoman.
