samsung 2TB hard drive issue

[Wino]

It only works in Linux.

If you don't have a working linux system your best bet is to download a linux livecd that already has GNU ddrescue on it.
http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

The cd is bootable and does not install on your system.

It's not a bad idea to install Ubuntu to a spare hard drive and then just install gnu ddrescue, testdisk etc via the Synaptic package manager. At least you will have a GUI to navigate around as some people can get a bit overwhelmed by only using the command line as is the case with the above two live cds. It's always handy to have around incase windows goes belly up and you need to access the files, format drives, resize partitions, export registry etc. It's a very handy swiss army knife

Thanks!
Going to give it a try.

 

[SouthBit]

See that you're not familiar with Linux/the program. Be careful when using the ddrescue command, make sure you select the correct drives. Accidently copying /sdb to /sda instead of /sdb to sdc for example will lose all your data on the target drive. Be sure to read the short tutorial first.

 

[ponder]

See that you're not familiar with Linux/the program. Be careful when using the ddrescue command, make sure you select the correct drives. Accidently copying /sdb to /sda instead of /sdb to sdc for example will lose all your data on the target drive. Be sure to read the short tutorial first.

+1000 Getting the drives mixed up can be a catastrophe of note.

sudo fdisk -l will give you the drive details. Do this right before whatever you do without a reboot because I have found that the device names can change between a reboot and different distros.