Re: NetBSD-friendly HDD recovery?

["Thomas Mueller" <mueller6725%twc.com@localhost>]

> On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 11:54:41AM -0600, David Young wrote:
 
> > I want to avoid paying a steep price to a service that scans the
> > medium and, finding no FAT/NTFS/HFS+/APFS volume on it, declares it
> > unrecoverable when, in actual fact, every bit is intact.  Is there a
> > service that I can trust my NetBSD disk to that has a reasonable fee
> > structure?
X-CMAE-Envelope: MS4wfNaO/uhadDlolDP43vqPZS/MYlw7VaTrUleXS7OiANt3YYiieh8/FZJXbGwxyd+n8voRQEWGLzKvFBCyTVIkqusZYoy+6LA8irMCZjAVzYseGJMzlzYV
 jUvdy7tEbEqXDZij12mRpFmRfo7yhyl4FWf0BdAyFE/ngp+0XLtxdKQu

> Perhaps you can find one that will provide a binary blob of this disk contents so
> you can loop mount the file and recover stuff.  As for cost I think the attitude of
> the data recovery places is that they have you by the short and curlies so they can
> charge what they like, I know that recovery can be complex and challenging but the
> pricing does seem excessive.

> If you have the same model drive you could take the electronics board off a working
> drive and put it on the dead one - I have done that in the past to good effect.

> Brett Lymn

Are you thinking of something that acts like dd on the whole disk but using special data-recovery methods?

That would require a medium having equal or greater data capacity.

Taking the electronics board off a working drive to transfer to a dead drive carries the risk of messing up and losing both drives.  I don't think I'd be daring enough. 

The hard-drive manufacturer would surely advise against taking off the electronics board and would point out that it would void the warranty.

Tom