Repairing/Copying Windows disk using Linux Tools - A bit OT
Greetings clever cloggses! Sprog's Windows laptop is occasionally saying "I have to reboot - disk error" "Check Disk" isn't really finding anything wrong. I used to be up to date with windows tools for fixing things, but now I'm out of date with Windows tools, though I'm up-to-date with Linux stuff. I'm wondering if likely that booting from Ultimate Boot CD and/or System Rescue CD and running fsck and proprietary disk check utilities (e.g. seagate's disk utility if the disk turns out to be a seagate) is a good idea. Is it possible to use DD to clone a windows hard disk, assuming the destination disk is bigger than the source. Once cloned, would the clone work as a bootable disk so I could swap out the damaged one and swap in the new one? Any advice appreciated. Anyone know a reputable computer fixer in the city? Thanks in advance. Steve
On Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:01:55 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk allegedly wrote:
Greetings clever cloggses!
Sprog's Windows laptop is occasionally saying "I have to reboot - disk error"
"Check Disk" isn't really finding anything wrong.
I used to be up to date with windows tools for fixing things, but now I'm out of date with Windows tools, though I'm up-to-date with Linux stuff.
I'm wondering if likely that booting from Ultimate Boot CD and/or System Rescue CD and running fsck and proprietary disk check utilities (e.g. seagate's disk utility if the disk turns out to be a seagate) is a good idea.
I doubt that will work. fsck is designed to check *nix filesystems. chkdsk is the windows equivalent.
Is it possible to use DD to clone a windows hard disk, assuming the destination disk is bigger than the source. Once cloned, would the clone work as a bootable disk so I could swap out the damaged one and swap in the new one?
How about clonezilla? Boot from the live disk and then clone the windows disk. So long as the disk is not too badly damaged and clonezilla can read the filesystems you may be lucky.
Any advice appreciated. Anyone know a reputable computer fixer in the city?
Afraid not, I've never used one. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 05:01:55PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Sprog's Windows laptop is occasionally saying "I have to reboot - disk error"
I'd be running some smart monitoring tools on the disk and/or checking the connections, might be an early sign of imminent hardware failure? Is that the actual error message or have you paraphrased it? Adam --
On 11/01/2021 22:10, Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 05:01:55PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Sprog's Windows laptop is occasionally saying "I have to reboot - disk error" I'd be running some smart monitoring tools on the disk and/or checking the connections, might be an early sign of imminent hardware failure?
Is that the actual error message or have you paraphrased it?
Moot at the moment, as I turned it on to look at the event log and try and find the error, & it went into a checkdisk that's been running for hours and has 3 hours ETA. In my experience that means terminal disk error. :-( (well bad sectors it's trying to read and fix, but, basically replace the disk). However, I was given a screenshot - "Security & Maintenance Restart to repair drive errors Click to restart your PC" That's it. :-(
On 11/01/2021 22:51, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
On 11/01/2021 22:10, Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 05:01:55PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Sprog's Windows laptop is occasionally saying "I have to reboot - disk error" I'd be running some smart monitoring tools on the disk and/or checking the connections, might be an early sign of imminent hardware failure?
Is that the actual error message or have you paraphrased it?
Moot at the moment, as I turned it on to look at the event log and try and find the error, & it went into a checkdisk that's been running for hours and has 3 hours ETA.
In my experience that means terminal disk error. :-( (well bad sectors it's trying to read and fix, but, basically replace the disk).
However, I was given a screenshot -
"Security & Maintenance
Restart to repair drive errors
Click to restart your PC"
That's it. :-(
So..... After hours of checkdisk, it rebooted perfectly OK. I suspect bad sectors, or disk failure, but once it was on it was OK - so probably was only hitting the bad bit of the disk occasionally. So... I bought a SSD update kit. We cloned the disk using the supplied cloning S/W, swapped in the new disk. BINGO! Works! But, somehow, in the process the battery died. So have a new battery on order. Really not sure how we managed to kill the internal battery though. Also discovered that Windows update had stuck and had to download the separate Windows Updater tool. Getting seriously off-topic now - sorry. May have to get myself an SSD for my Linux laptop - it's fast, but worryingly quiet! Steve
On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 10:38:13PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
May have to get myself an SSD for my Linux laptop - it's fast, but worryingly quiet!
I don't think I've had any spinning disks in a laptop for 6 years now, would highly suggest getting an SSD to anyone no matter what you use a laptop for (or a desktop or server for that matter). The only spinning disks I have in my machines are in games consoles, a downloaded file dump, the scratch space for cloud backups and a cardboard box waiting for to me drilling holes in them and take them to the recycling centre. Adam --
On 14/01/2021 11:31, Adam Bower wrote:
I don't think I've had any spinning disks in a laptop for 6 years now, would highly suggest getting an SSD to anyone no matter what you use a laptop for (or a desktop or server for that matter).
The only spinning disks I have in my machines are in games consoles, a downloaded file dump, the scratch space for cloud backups and a cardboard box waiting for to me drilling holes in them and take them to the recycling centre.
Until this necessity, I'd always been wary of the extra cost & comparatively small capacity, coupled with the fact that I've never brought myself a new laptop, so all but one of the ones I've bought have come with spinning rust. However in the circumstances that I found myself in, the cost of a SSD kit was a fraction of the cost of a new laptop. Clearly things have changed since I last looked at SSDs. Small size was previously a limiting factor for me, but I got a 1TB without breaking the bank. I'm thinking of getting one for my personal laptop now.I got a 1TB without breaking the bank. As I got a kit, there is a V Cheap Hard Disk USB caddy/case which I've plugged the faulty spinning rust in. I'm currently running a surface test on that disk (via Ultimate Boot CD) and there are errors on it. That confirms what was wrong with the laptop. Fingers crossed that the new battery restores the laptop to normal operation - having to run it on mains is a bit of a pain. Drilling holes in old disks before taking to the tip? Does that work well? I usually run DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on them, then break the sata or IDE pins off. Physical damage to the platters if something I'll consider. Do you just use a hand drill? Does it work well? Any tips?? Steve
Just hit the whole thing with a hammer until platters are bent... On 14/01/2021 19:31, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Drilling holes in old disks before taking to the tip? Does that work well? I usually run DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on them, then break the sata or IDE pins off. Physical damage to the platters if something I'll consider. Do you just use a hand drill? Does it work well? Any tips??
On 14/01/2021 19:41, Huge wrote:
Just hit the whole thing with a hammer until platters are bent...
On 14/01/2021 19:31, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Drilling holes in old disks before taking to the tip? Does that work well? I usually run DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on them, then break the sata or IDE pins off. Physical damage to the platters if something I'll consider. Do you just use a hand drill? Does it work well? Any tips??
Phil - Don't own a pickaxe. Huge - Take the case off & hit, or hit the outside of the case? Until recently, didn't have "star" head screwdriver that would have allowed me to take the top off the disk. Steve
On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 19:31:04 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk allegedly wrote:
Drilling holes in old disks before taking to the tip? Does that work well? I usually run DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on them, then break the sata or IDE pins off. Physical damage to the platters if something I'll consider. Do you just use a hand drill? Does it work well? Any tips??
Personally I've found that a 6 inch nail and a 2 pound lump hammer works wonders. Of course, I'm sure that the metric equivalent would do equally well. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 08:36:01PM +0000, mick wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 19:31:04 +0000 steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk allegedly wrote:
Drilling holes in old disks before taking to the tip? Does that work well? I usually run DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on them, then break the sata or IDE pins off. Physical damage to the platters if something I'll consider. Do you just use a hand drill? Does it work well? Any tips??
Personally I've found that a 6 inch nail and a 2 pound lump hammer works wonders. Of course, I'm sure that the metric equivalent would do equally well.
I still wonder that anyone believes such extreme measures are necessary! Criminals are not, in the main, super intelligent computer gurus. Simply using one of the overwriting utilities is going to prevent anyone except the CIA from reading your disks and it'll cost the CIA way more than the money in your bank accounts to do it (even if they can). Apart from anything else 99.99% of criminals won't know a thing about Linux. I do make sure that in the main there's no useful (to someone who wants to get my money) information stored on my disks. I don't let browsers store passwords or anything like that. In this day and age of SSDs erasing is easy anyway isn't it? Though I bet some conspiracy theorist will come up with a way that some nefarious secret/spy agency has come up with a way to read overwritten data on an SSD. -- Chris Green
On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 20:51:49 +0000 Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> allegedly wrote:
I still wonder that anyone believes such extreme measures are necessary! Criminals are not, in the main, super intelligent computer gurus.
Simply using one of the overwriting utilities is going to prevent anyone except the CIA from reading your disks and it'll cost the CIA way more than the money in your bank accounts to do it (even if they can).
It makes me feel better and safer. In my professional life I have come across examples of disks supposedly "securely" erased. They weren't. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 08:58:19PM +0000, mick wrote:
On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 20:51:49 +0000 Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> allegedly wrote:
I still wonder that anyone believes such extreme measures are necessary! Criminals are not, in the main, super intelligent computer gurus.
Simply using one of the overwriting utilities is going to prevent anyone except the CIA from reading your disks and it'll cost the CIA way more than the money in your bank accounts to do it (even if they can).
It makes me feel better and safer.
In my professional life I have come across examples of disks supposedly "securely" erased. They weren't.
I'd love to hear details. In my IT life (I started in the early 1970s) I've not come across such things, only the opposite! I *know* that simply 'rm file' or 'del file' doesn't do all that much except allow the space to be overwritten but that's surely fairly well known. -- Chris Green
On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 at 21:08, Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
I *know* that simply 'rm file' or 'del file' doesn't do all that much except allow the space to be overwritten but that's surely fairly well known.
There are standards for overwriting files multiple times with particular bit patterns to wipe data. The "shred" command is supposed to do this on Linux but comes with many warnings and may not play nice with journaled filesystems. An alternative is "srm" -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott@gmail.com> cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5
On Thu, 14 Jan 2021 21:08:03 +0000 Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> allegedly wrote:
I'd love to hear details.
In my IT life (I started in the early 1970s) I've not come across such things, only the opposite!
I *know* that simply 'rm file' or 'del file' doesn't do all that much except allow the space to be overwritten but that's surely fairly well known.
You'd be surprised how stupid most people are, particularly criminals. But that aside, as others have pointed out, modern jornaling filesystems actually make deletion of any kind rather problematic. And take a look at the sort of forensics tools used by professionals (particularly LEAs). Encase is probably the best known. That can even cope with decryption of deleted files. Also do some research on Device Configuration Overlay and Host Protected Areas on spinning rust. How big is that disk you are using? 500 Gig? Are you sure? Are you certain it isn't actually 900Gig and the disk controller (completely unbeknown to you or the the OS) is actually writing copies of "deleted" files to the HPA. Some manufacturers or suppliers have used the HPA to hide persistent code on laptops so that those laptops can report home when stolen. And since the HPA is not touched by the OS, even a complete reformat by the crims will not remove it and it can still report home. It is widely reported that the NSA (for example) uses HPA to hide persistent code. Malicious rootkits have used the same appproach. And if "secure" deletion were really that easy and effective, why would anyone bother to market hardware level devices such as 4Secure erase https://www.4secure-erase.com/? Devices which are certified (and used) by GCHQ amongst others. But as I said above, most people are just stupid (or naive). Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Harder. DBAN won't work. https://www.wepc.com/how-to/securely-erase-an-ssd-drive/ And this is why you should; https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/hard-drives-contain-pr... On 14/01/2021 20:51, Chris Green wrote:
In this day and age of SSDs erasing is easy anyway isn't it?
On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 07:31:04PM +0000, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote:
Until this necessity, I'd always been wary of the extra cost & comparatively small capacity, coupled with the fact that I've never brought myself a new laptop, so all but one of the ones I've bought have come with spinning rust. However in the circumstances that I found myself in, the cost of a SSD kit was a fraction of the cost of a new laptop.
To be honest, every system I have added an SSD to has to gained such a huge performance benefit that they practially double (or better) in performance. Obviously this depends on your use case and what you do but comparatively the cost of buying more RAM and CPU vs. upgrading the storage meant that an SSD has always been a very very cheap upgrade!
Drilling holes in old disks before taking to the tip? Does that work well? I usually run DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) on them, then break the sata or IDE pins off. Physical damage to the platters if something I'll consider. Do you just use a hand drill? Does it work well? Any tips??
Yes! It works incredibly well to relieve stress and anger. Battery powered Bosch PSB-18 drill and some bits for drilling metal do the job. Like Huge says, also hitting them with a hammer can be fun too. Don't forget eye protection though. Adam --
participants (6)
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Chris Green -
Huge -
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steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk