Quote Originally Posted by wfran123
Max,

Thank you for the reply and ideas.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the best way for me to connect/access my broken HD once I replace it with a new one?
Can I make the bitstream copy of the hard-drive like you are suggesting to an external storage drive?

I should have provided more information previously - I am using a Toshiba Satellite P25-S477 laptop with WinXP.

Thank you.
Hi,

hd adaptors are cheap you can by one according to your hd model (ide or sata) an plug it in a desktop computer, better to connect it directly to the desktop motherboard without an usb/sata/ide converter.
Then you can boot the desktop pc with knoppix and make the bitstream copy in the desktop pc's hd with ddrescue.
If the desktop pc's hd is too small or there isn't enought room you can buy/land another hd (ide/sata), connect to the desktop pc' motherboard a make the copy there. (Just to be extra safe you can disconnect the desktop pc's original hd).
Onother way could be an external box usb/firewire or a nas. I think the safest way is the first one, see the this post:
:
http://www.nabble.com/ddrescue-and-n....html#a9360272

If you want to make other copies of the bitstream image (this could be a good idea..) remember to produce an md5sum of the original copy and check that the other copy has the same md5 ( md5sum image_file > md5sum.xt ), after the copy ( for not to stress the hd before you have the clone..) you can try to make an md5sum of the hd too ( md5sum /dev/xxx).