I'm currently rescuing files from a partly broken hard drive where the very early sectors are unreadable. It is a USB hard-drive ("mobile") from a DJ. So I will find it "easy" to search for #MP3 files (he doesn't use OGG).

First I tried to normally mount it, which fails due to the broken sectors 0-9 (which holds the required data). Also a fsck.vfat didn't work. So I had to install #myresuce and and #magicrescue.

I did it better in screens so I can leave them unattended:

screen -dmS myrescue myrescue /dev/sdb1 sdb1.bin

I had to wait ~ 10 minutes to start the next one:

screen -dmS magicrescue magicrescue -d sdb1/ -r mp3-id3v2 sdb1.bin

/dev/sdb1 is the USB drive and of course I needed to create ~/sdb1/ to have found files being written there.

Now there are a lot MP3 files but all 40 MB large. I will forward them to the DJ so he has to cut them to the right size.

I just thought you might be interested in before going to a "professional" #disk #rescue company.