Crisis normally create a great environment for quick learning. Some would say that it also exposes lack of planing, which in my experience both are equally true.

Last week I had a server’s HD die on me and I suddenly had to rescue some of the newer data that for some stupid reason I had not selected for backup. I found a lot of information out there but none seemed to work untill I came across some simple instructions on using dd & reiserfsck to rescue the data from my dead HD into a .img file and mount it.

The process is slow but works nicely. Please follow the instructions here.

PS: just remember to use — instead of – before the switches otherwise it’s not going to work.