Hello rsync people Today I was recovering data from a beginning-to-fail external USB hard disk.
I started with my usual 'rsync -av --ignore-errors <source> <dest>', and that was fine until it got to the first I/O errors. It paused but continued after the first couple of errors, but then the disk started buzzing and rsync gave error messages for every file (I'm afraid I didn't note the exact text of the messages). After that, every run of rsync (trying to --exclude the faulty files and folders) started the disk buzzing again, and rsync couldn't copy anything.
The curious thing was that after replugging the disk, I was able to manually drag-and-drop a lot more files from the disk via the Debian desktop. Trying rsync again quickly caused the buzzing problem again.
In other words, a simple file copy was able to read the disk when rsync gave errors. Is that to be expected? Is there a way to make rsync more gentle on a fragile disk?
cheers Chris -- Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK -- Please use reply-all for most replies to avoid omitting the mailing list. To unsubscribe or change options: https://lists.samba.org/mailman/listinfo/rsync Before posting, read: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
