[SGVLUG] recommendations on local (Pasadena) data restorationservices?

[Emerson, Tom]

Look back in the lug's archive for the discussion on retrieving photos
from a "corrupted" memory stick -- there are several "proprietary"
programs that worked to a degree (and in one case, I think, repackaged
for several "cases", but all doing the exact same task, i.e., one was
for recovering "memory sticks", another for "camera memory cards",
another for "usb memory", and so on -- you get the point...)  The only
downside (in your case) is that these are targeted to recovering images
(photos) not neccessarilly "random data files"

there was also one that was targeted to "forensic discovery", and in
fact may have been "open source" [perhaps even a source-only
distribution, can't remember offhand] that worked superb -- the intended
use may seem to be different, but the end results are often the same:
recovery of the data...  Also, since the intent is to "discover"
(incriminating) evidence, it will look for more file types as well as
files embedded in other files (naughty pictures embedded in a word
document, for instance...)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net 
> [mailto:sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net] On Behalf Of Bryan Backer
> 
> As you can tell by the subject line, this is a tale of woe.
[...]
> 1) has anybody had luck with any liveCD Linux distributions
> (or other rescue liveCDs) that include tools to deduce and 
> reconstruct files from the disk (NTFS, I believe) if linux 
> sees read errors on blocks 1 and 2? I've seen mention of 
> tools that could, given time, grind through disks and attempt 
> to locate some portions of the files even if the boot blocks 
> or disk indicies or whatever were gone, but those tools won't 
> be standard issue on liveCDs meant for general desktop use.

Use "dd" to copy the data to another device "as a file", then the
aforementioned "forensic discovery" tool can "grind through" the file
without regard to things like missing FAT info...  [or similar on an
ntfs/reiser/ext/flavor-of-the-month file system]