Clone an SSD that keeps powering off randomly

RMSe17

Member
Feb 20, 2005
153
0
0
Problem: I got an old OCZ Vertex LE that is dying. At random it will power off, or lock up. Unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in makes the drive reappear.

I need to clone the drive. What is the easiest way to accomplish this?

I can't figure out if dd has a "infinite retries option", but I cant see it.

Looks like ddrescue is the defacto failing drive recovery program, but I don't want it going into "split and crawl" for the rest of the drive cause the program assumed that the rest of my drive is a gigantic failed cluster region when the drive powers off. Is there some way to tell ddrescue to stay in part 1 of the algorithm and just do infinite retries (giving me time to unplug and replug the drive)?

I also tried Acronis, and it fails out at drive disconnect.

Is there some other option that would work?

Thanks for your help!
 

Cerb

Elite Member
Aug 26, 2000
17,484
33
86
Thing is, if you're removing and reinstalling the drive, it's a different drive when you plug it back in, so you likely cannot do exactly what you want. You would need something that will copy chunks at a time, rather than starting from the beginning of the file (drive). Plain dd can be made to do that, I'm pretty sure, but I wouldn't know precisely how.

Does it not stay on long enough for you to read important files only off of it, a few at a time?