A simple way to transfer photos from your phone to Windows without installing anything on either

Paul wrote:

We're always here to help you with your data corruption problems.

Just be patient when it happens, OK ?

Now that the Win10 is set back up with MS Office 2007, I'm gonna tackle
getting the DATA back off the old hard drive.

Do you think Microsoft Support phone numbers will handle a call on Win 10
corruption due to the Microsoft Update?

ultred ragnusen wrote:
Paul wrote:

We're always here to help you with your data corruption problems.

Just be patient when it happens, OK ?

Now that the Win10 is set back up with MS Office 2007, I'm gonna tackle
getting the DATA back off the old hard drive.

Do you think Microsoft Support phone numbers will handle a call on Win 10
corruption due to the Microsoft Update?

They might.

Are you willing to let them remote in ?

Some people value their privacy more than they value a "repair".

Can you explain, succinctly, to the person on the phone,
what you did to the disk right after the incident ?

In other words, things that might have complicated the situation.

You may have tried that DISM command to back out
a half-finished update. That might have been one of them.
Maybe it was "revert" something-or-other. The first command is
to back out a patch that didn't actually install. The second
one would be backing out a patch that did install.

DISM /image:c:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions

DISM /image:c:\ /remove-package /_packagename_

I think the image parameter implies the operation is an
offline one, and typically it might be /image:d:\ because
of the weird way drive letters are determine in WinPE
(what you're booted from, when trying to recover).

On a damaged disk, "CHKDSK" is a "repair-in-place" utility.
You *must* make a backup before using it, or possibly
forever lose access to the data. CHKDSK is *not* a utility
for casual usage. It's perfectly safe when the disk is
healthy... and quite deadly when the disk is sick. It's
a paradox to be resolved by creating a backup before you
use it. Even the twit on the phone should know that.

Before you allow a twit to work on that disk, you
back it up. In case my little description didn't paint
a vivid enough picture for you.

Even when you take a computer to the computer store or
to Geek Squad for repair, you back it up first!!!
No exceptions. You can use ddrescue for this, if you cannot
find anything else to use.

HTH,
Paul

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

If your system can't recognise the drive, you'll have to take it to a
tech shop that specialises in data recovery.

false. there are recovery utilities that do not require a mountable
file system.

nospam wrote:
In article , Wolf K
wrote:

If your system can't recognise the drive, you'll have to take it to a
tech shop that specialises in data recovery.

false. there are recovery utilities that do not require a mountable
file system.

If you cannot get an identity string at BIOS level, it's dead.

I think that's what Wolf is referring to.

Paul

In article , Paul
wrote:

If your system can't recognise the drive, you'll have to take it to a
tech shop that specialises in data recovery.

false. there are recovery utilities that do not require a mountable
file system.

If you cannot get an identity string at BIOS level, it's dead.

then don't use a system that uses bios, a system that doesn't have such
a ridiculous limitation.

I think that's what Wolf is referring to.

i don't know what he's referring to, but the statement as written is
false.

Paul wrote:

Do you think Microsoft Support phone numbers will handle a call on Win 10
corruption due to the Microsoft Update?

They might.

Today the Microsoft Support Tier 2 technician tried to "repair" the Windows
10 Pro HDD that Microsoft Windows Update bricked about a month ago.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/4xt104h.jpg

They failed. It took /hours/, where the 2nd tier Microsoft Technical
Support (+1-800-642-7676) stuck with me the entire time.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/4xt104i.jpg

Since the OS wouldn't boot, screenshots were out of the question.

So I snapped scores of new photos with the spare Moto G Android phone of
exactly the procedure Microsoft followed during the hours it took to fail,
and I transferred those photos to this computer using the "it just works"
method described in this thread.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/4xt104g.jpg

Are you willing to let them remote in ?

Yes. I already physically replaced the HDD that Microsoft Update bricked,
which needed Office 2007 Pro, where Microsoft Technical Support
(+1-800-360-7561) remotely installed and activated MS Office for me earlier
today.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...ice2007_16.jpg

They remoted into my machine in order for them to manually install
Microsoft Office 2007 Pro for me earlier today, all the steps of which are
fully documented in screenshots for group tribal knowledge here.

SOLVED: How to download an ISO image for Office 2007 Pro in the year 2018
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/microsoft.public.windowsxp.general/7ru4_AyhPCY

Some people value their privacy more than they value a "repair".

All I care about is my data, where they would be bored to tears if they
looked at it - but my data is important to me (pictures of the grandkids,
financial records, thousands of DIY photos, etc.).

I let Microsoft remote in a second time today because they needed to create
a bootable media for me on a known-good computer, we created 1709 bootable
DVD media to attempt to repair the bricked Microsoft Windows 10 Pro.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/6xt104j.jpg

Can you explain, succinctly, to the person on the phone,
what you did to the disk right after the incident ?

Hmmm... I'm not known to be laconic.
I explained that I hit /every/ button that the recovery console provided
/except/ the one that wipes out everything and reinstalls Windows 10 Pro.

In other words, things that might have complicated the situation.

The only thing I did that might complicate things is the DISM command you
suggested, where the 2nd tier support at Microsoft told me that they never
use DISM on a system that doesn't already boot.

I don't remember what the DISM command was that I used, but we documented
it in a prior psot so I can dig it up (they didn't seem to care since that
X:\ command prompt is the one step they never use, they told me.

You may have tried that DISM command to back out
a half-finished update. That might have been one of them.
Maybe it was "revert" something-or-other. The first command is
to back out a patch that didn't actually install. The second
one would be backing out a patch that did install.

DISM /image:c:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions
DISM /image:c:\ /remove-package /_packagename_

Yup. I ran whatever DISM you had suggested at the time, but they told me
that DISM won't do anything on a system that won't boot except to the
recovery console.

On a damaged disk, "CHKDSK" is a "repair-in-place" utility.
You *must* make a backup before using it, or possibly
forever lose access to the data. CHKDSK is *not* a utility
for casual usage.

You can't run CHKDSK if the disk won't mount.

It's perfectly safe when the disk is
healthy... and quite deadly when the disk is sick.

There's nothing wrong with the disk (AFAIK).

It's the Microsoft Update that bricked it. I suspect it's because I
customized the hell out of that system, to the point that Microsoft Updates
didn't work at all until recently. Then wham! Windows Update bricked the
system.

The tech support said it's because the HP machine I'm using doesn't have
drivers from HP for Win10 but I suspect it's just poor coding that can't
handle customizations.

Lesson learned - don't customize Windows 10 Pro too much.

It's a paradox to be resolved by creating a backup before you
use it. Even the twit on the phone should know that.

There's no way to make a backup if you can't "mount" the data.
(I see your suggestion for ddrescue below... see below for details.)

We ended up making a support appointment at the nearest Microsoft Support
Center, which, in the Silicon Valley, is open the strangest hours!
Monday = Midnight to Midnight
Tuesday = Noon to 9:30PM
Wednesday = 10am to Midnight
Thursday = 10 am to 9:30 PM
Friday = 10 am to 9:30 PM
Saturday = 10 am to 9:30 PM
Sunday = Closed

Before you allow a twit to work on that disk, you
back it up. In case my little description didn't paint
a vivid enough picture for you.

I can't imagine how to back up a disk that can't be mounted.
(I see your suggestion for ddrescue below... see below for details.)

As you know, I plugged it into an SATA/IDE/PATA adapter but a known good
Windows 10 computer wouldn't mount it.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...sb_adapter.jpg

Even when you take a computer to the computer store or
to Geek Squad for repair, you back it up first!!!

How do you back up a terabyte HDD that won't mount?
(I see your suggestion for ddrescue below... see below for details.)

No exceptions. You can use ddrescue for this, if you cannot
find anything else to use.

Googling for "ddrescue" canonical site, it looks like it's dead:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ddrescueview/

Maybe the GNU link is the canonical site?
http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/

It's a gunzipped tarball, so I'll deal with that.

Seems to have some associated utilities but they don't work on Windows.
DDRescue-GUI - A simple GUI (Graphical User Interface) for ddrescue.
http://www.hamishmb.altervista.org/h...e=ddrescue-gui

And they're dead links anyway:
Ddrescueview - A graphical viewer for GNU ddrescue log files.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ddrescueview/

Ddrutility - A set of tools designed to work with ddrescue to aid with data
recovery.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ddrutility/

I'll read up s'more on ddrescue. Thanks. We should probably take this out
of the r.p.d ng because it's off topic so I'll post a separate thread.

Wolf K wrote:

Do you think Microsoft Support phone numbers will handle a call on Win 10
corruption due to the Microsoft Update?

I doubt it, but always worth a try.

Turns out that Microsoft Tier 2 tech support (+1-800-642-7676) walks you
through all the steps to try to recover a system bricked by Windows Update.

1. First they walk you through all the recovery options on the HDD itself,
2. Then they create a bootable DVD for you if you have another system,
3. Then they walk you through those same options using the bootable DVD

The recovery at #1 and #3 failed so I have an appointment at a Microsoft
Store in the middle of Silicon Valley, since I have to be at the convention
center the rest of the week anyway.

For recovering data off a trashed HDD: Does Windows recognise it, ie,
assign a drive letter?

Nope. I tried two things that would work with most bricked systems.
A. It won't boot except to the blue Windows recovery consoles, and,
B. It isn't recognized except as an unknown USB drive when plugged into an
SATA adapter I bought at the local Silicon Valley Fryes for this purpose.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...sb_adapter.jpg

The even if Win can't read the data, you should
be able to get it.

Yup. You're correct. If some kind of recovery tool could "mount" the drive,
I'd be home free. I haven't tried a Linux rescue CD because my Linux laptop
fan died and I haven't replaced the fan yet.

I recommend Recuva, which I've used with great success.

Thanks for that suggestion, where I googled for the canonical Recuva
location, which seems to be the Ccleaner site:
http://www.ccleaner.com/recuva
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva/download

There are other data recovery programs, other people will no
doubt give their recommendations.

I will follow your advice, and that of Paul, by backing up what I can, but
one issue with a dd command is that the new disk is 1TB while the old disk
is 1TB so it's not going to work unless I buy a third HDD of at least 1TB.

There are also Linux-based tools, which can be run off a live CD, but as
with Windows, Linux has to be able to recognise it (mount it).

Thanks for that suggestion. Googling, I found Knoppix live DVD software
http://knoppix.net/
which has a bit torrent mechanism for faster downloading:
http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de:6969/

KNOPPIX_V8.1-2017-09-05-EN
http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/sta...a 0170753eec6

Since this is a brand new Win10 Pro installation, I had to dig up a bit
torrent client to use since the one recommended and linked to on the
Knoppix site above is a dead link:
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html

So I downloaded and installed uTorrent, which I've used in the past for
Linux ISO downloads to use within Windows inside VirtualBox.
http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/co.../stable/os/win

If your system can't recognise the drive, you'll have to take it to a
tech shop that specialises in data recovery.

Since I'll be in San Jose, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountainview, and Santa
Clara all this week, I already have an appointment at the Microsoft Store
at Westfield Valley Fair, 2855 Stevenscreek Blvd, Suite 1135, 2nd floor,
+1-408-454-5940

ultred ragnusen wrote:


I'll read up s'more on ddrescue. Thanks. We should probably take this out
of the r.p.d ng because it's off topic so I'll post a separate thread.

If you have something like Ubuntu, try "gddrescue".

The package name and the executable name, don't have
to be the same. That's what adds to the joy of figuring it out.

ddrescue is a utility that tolerates "CRC error" when reading
a disk. You can make one run after another, and the "log" file
keeps track of what sectors have not been recovered yet. Looking
at the log, you get some idea how much damage remains (in terms
of CRC errors).

The items are

source disk
destination disk
log file

You present the same log file to the tool, every time you
run the same source and dest. The log file gets updated when
hard-to-read sectors are finally captured. Eventually, after
enough passes, there will be some sectors that will never be
read. And you hope that those are replaced by zeros. Then,
if you run CHKDSK on that destination drive, it might be
able to restore enough of the disk, to get (most) of the
data off it.

ddrescue is mechanical and captures sectors. It doesn't know
or care whether the partition is NTFS or EXT4. Doesn't matter.

It relies on other tools, to make sense of what it captured.

The "logical" state of the file system is another matter
entirely. For example, my Windows 10 Insider partition that
had volume bitmap corruption and some damage to Extended Attributes,
I could use ddrescue on that hard drive, and it would complete
the transfer in only one pass (the log file would be clean).
No second pass would be needed. But in order to correct the
damage on the disk, it takes a couple CHKDSK commands to finish
the job.

I don't really care all that much, what happens to my
Windows 10 Insider installs, as Windows 10 is the "software
as a service" OS, and it should "run like a King". It's
simply not possible for a product like that, to be bricked...
Right ? :-/

This would be an example of backing up a hard drive, to an
"image file". The "image file" could be restored to a new hard
drive later, say. The "S" argument in this example is sparse.
For experiments of this kind, I can prepare /dev/sdb in advance
to contain mostly zeroed data files. When the backup is
written out, it need not take much space on the storage
device. This allows backup experiments with only a small amount
of real space on the destination. I think the -b parameter
sets the max transfer size. The command is adaptive and
adjusts the block transfer according to how "bad" the disk
is. The block size is increased, as long as it improves the
overall transfer rate. If the fastest transfer is happening with
4KB blocks, then it'll use 4KB transfers instead.

ddrescue -S -b8M /dev/sdb /mount/external/backup/sdb.raw /mount/external/backup/sdb.log

Because there was nothing wrong with the disk, I had no real
opportunity to craft a "second pass" command for it. So that
command is for the first pass. You can open the log in a
text editor, and see what remains to be transferred and whether
another pass is required.

Paul

Paul wrote:

I'll read up s'more on ddrescue. Thanks. We should probably take this out
of the r.p.d ng because it's off topic so I'll post a separate thread.

If you have something like Ubuntu, try "gddrescue".

The fan died on my Ubuntu 16.04 laptop, but I can torrent the Ubuntu ISO
and boot off of it or even re-install VirtualBox (although it took a long
time before I had VirtualBox working on the original HDD).

I did torrent Knoppix though and burned it to a bootable DVD image,
although even with almost 2,500 peers, it still took a long while to
torrent.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/knoppix1.jpg

The package name and the executable name, don't have
to be the same. That's what adds to the joy of figuring it out.

I think I'll try Knoppix first, and then, perhaps Recuva, where your advice
to back up the data /before/ handing the desktop tower to Microsoft is good
advice.

ddrescue is a utility that tolerates "CRC error" when reading
a disk. You can make one run after another, and the "log" file
keeps track of what sectors have not been recovered yet. Looking
at the log, you get some idea how much damage remains (in terms
of CRC errors).

Personally, I don't think there is any /damage/ to the HDD; I think it's as
simple as Microsoft Windows Update screwed up, perhaps because I had
customized the heck out of the system (Winaero, Classic Shell, etc.).

ddrescue is mechanical and captures sectors. It doesn't know
or care whether the partition is NTFS or EXT4. Doesn't matter.

Thanks for the ddrescue advice. I'm not sure yet if it's a standalone
bootable tool or something that runs inside of Windows or Linux but I'll
work it out after trying out Knoppix with the bad HDD connected via the
SATA adapter to the USB port on the desktop booted to Knoppix.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/knoppix2.jpg

On 2/23/2018 9:11 PM, ultred ragnusen wrote:
Wolf K wrote:

Do you think Microsoft Support phone numbers will handle a call on Win 10
corruption due to the Microsoft Update?

I doubt it, but always worth a try.

Turns out that Microsoft Tier 2 tech support (+1-800-642-7676) walks you
through all the steps to try to recover a system bricked by Windows Update.

1. First they walk you through all the recovery options on the HDD itself,
2. Then they create a bootable DVD for you if you have another system,
3. Then they walk you through those same options using the bootable DVD

The recovery at #1 and #3 failed so I have an appointment at a Microsoft
Store in the middle of Silicon Valley, since I have to be at the convention
center the rest of the week anyway.

For recovering data off a trashed HDD: Does Windows recognise it, ie,
assign a drive letter?

Nope. I tried two things that would work with most bricked systems.
A. It won't boot except to the blue Windows recovery consoles, and,
B. It isn't recognized except as an unknown USB drive when plugged into an
SATA adapter I bought at the local Silicon Valley Fryes for this purpose.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...sb_adapter.jpg

The even if Win can't read the data, you should
be able to get it.

Yup. You're correct. If some kind of recovery tool could "mount" the drive,
I'd be home free. I haven't tried a Linux rescue CD because my Linux laptop
fan died and I haven't replaced the fan yet.

I recommend Recuva, which I've used with great success.

Thanks for that suggestion, where I googled for the canonical Recuva
location, which seems to be the Ccleaner site:
http://www.ccleaner.com/recuva
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva/download

There are other data recovery programs, other people will no
doubt give their recommendations.

I will follow your advice, and that of Paul, by backing up what I can, but
one issue with a dd command is that the new disk is 1TB while the old disk
is 1TB so it's not going to work unless I buy a third HDD of at least 1TB.

There are also Linux-based tools, which can be run off a live CD, but as
with Windows, Linux has to be able to recognise it (mount it).

Thanks for that suggestion. Googling, I found Knoppix live DVD software
http://knoppix.net/
which has a bit torrent mechanism for faster downloading:
http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de:6969/

KNOPPIX_V8.1-2017-09-05-EN
http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/sta...a 0170753eec6

Since this is a brand new Win10 Pro installation, I had to dig up a bit
torrent client to use since the one recommended and linked to on the
Knoppix site above is a dead link:
http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/download.html

So I downloaded and installed uTorrent, which I've used in the past for
Linux ISO downloads to use within Windows inside VirtualBox.
http://www.utorrent.com/downloads/co.../stable/os/win

If your system can't recognise the drive, you'll have to take it to a
tech shop that specialises in data recovery.

Since I'll be in San Jose, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Mountainview, and Santa
Clara all this week, I already have an appointment at the Microsoft Store
at Westfield Valley Fair, 2855 Stevenscreek Blvd, Suite 1135, 2nd floor,
+1-408-454-5940


You can do a startup repair and then a complete 10 repair install with a
free w10 dvd (you d/l the iso for).

w10 disk image
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

If you can't boot from the hdd, boot from the dvd and run the startup
repair. If that is successful and you can boot from the hdd you can
reinstall all of the w10 system files while retaining your programs,
settings, and data, if needed.

w10 repair install procedure
https://neosmart.net/wiki/windows-10...-installation/

ultred ragnusen wrote:
Paul wrote:

I'll read up s'more on ddrescue. Thanks. We should probably take this out
of the r.p.d ng because it's off topic so I'll post a separate thread.
If you have something like Ubuntu, try "gddrescue".

The fan died on my Ubuntu 16.04 laptop, but I can torrent the Ubuntu ISO
and boot off of it or even re-install VirtualBox (although it took a long
time before I had VirtualBox working on the original HDD).

I did torrent Knoppix though and burned it to a bootable DVD image,
although even with almost 2,500 peers, it still took a long while to
torrent.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/knoppix1.jpg

The package name and the executable name, don't have
to be the same. That's what adds to the joy of figuring it out.

I think I'll try Knoppix first, and then, perhaps Recuva, where your advice
to back up the data /before/ handing the desktop tower to Microsoft is good
advice.

ddrescue is a utility that tolerates "CRC error" when reading
a disk. You can make one run after another, and the "log" file
keeps track of what sectors have not been recovered yet. Looking
at the log, you get some idea how much damage remains (in terms
of CRC errors).

Personally, I don't think there is any /damage/ to the HDD; I think it's as
simple as Microsoft Windows Update screwed up, perhaps because I had
customized the heck out of the system (Winaero, Classic Shell, etc.).

ddrescue is mechanical and captures sectors. It doesn't know
or care whether the partition is NTFS or EXT4. Doesn't matter.

Thanks for the ddrescue advice. I'm not sure yet if it's a standalone
bootable tool or something that runs inside of Windows or Linux but I'll
work it out after trying out Knoppix with the bad HDD connected via the
SATA adapter to the USB port on the desktop booted to Knoppix.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/knoppix2.jpg

Since the disk is "suspected good" at the hardware level,
you can use "dd" on it. Knoppix will have a copy. Every Linux
distro has "dd" on it. The "dd" utility does not tolerate CRC
errors like gddrescue does. Which is fine with your hard drive.

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/sparedrive/bigdisk.bin bs=512 count=...

That's the general format for storing every sector on a hard
drive, as a "very large file" stored on a second disk.

If you have two 1TB drives, then obviously when you make the
/media/sparedrive partition, it will be slightly smaller than
the thing you are copying.

However, sometimes partitions support compression. You can
also chain commands together in the command line.

Adjust the arithmetic product of blocksize and count parameters,
so the entire disk is copied. Unlike gddrescue with its adaptive
transfer scheme, "dd" expects you to do the math and copy
as much or as little of the drive as you'd like. For example,
the second command here would transfer around 1.2GB or so.

sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=12345678 | gzip -3 /media/sparedrive/bigdisk.bin.gz

sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=1048576 count=1234 | gzip -3 /media/sparedrive/bigdisk.bin.gz

Since you're in Linux, you can try...

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

and get size info for the disk. Then, use the factor program,
to see what number makes a good fit for blocksize "bs" parameter.
(bs * count) must equal the total size info you got.

factor 123456789

*******

Let's try an example. This is a disk sitting on my Test Machine.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.27.1).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

Command (m for help): p
Disk /dev/sda: 477 GiB, 512110190592 bytes, 1000215216 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x72ca3ed1

Now I type "q" to quit, and move on to the next command.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ factor 512110190592
512110190592: 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 7 11 13 257
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

2^13 = 8192, which is a pretty small block size. Some newer
drives will run at the sustained transfer rate, even with that
small of a block size parameter. What I can do, is throw in
3^3 to make it a bit larger. 2^13 * 3^3 = 221184 bytes.

Dividing 512110190592 by 221184, completes the job (2315313)

To copy my 500GB specimen, I'd use

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/sparedrive/bigdisk.bin bs=221184 count=2315313

knowing that I'm getting every sector of the source. If the
destination drive is slightly too small, I have the option
of piping the output into a compression command of some sort.
There's possibly a p7zip-full package and a command line 7zip invocation
to achieve a higher compression ratio. But it would be
significantly slower.

There is also the pigz package, which is like gzip only it allows
more than one CPU core to be used. The ZIP that 7ZIP does, uses
a single core by comparison, when compressing. Some other 7ZIP
formats, use multiple cores.

sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=221184 count=2315313 | pigz -3 -p 4 out.bin.gz

Anyway, I'm sure you'll figure out something.

To restore the disk later, it would be something like

unpigz -c out.bin.gz | sudo dd of=/dev/sda bs=221184 count=2315313

On some platforms, you can use if=- to stand for "stdin" and
of=- for "stdout". But it's also possible the command understands
the piping situation and the "missing" portion of the command,
to mean the same thing. That's why my last command doesn't have
an input file specification.

To do something like this (i.e. not specify if= and of=),
it's going to copy stdin to stdout.

cat sample.bin | dd destination.bin

If I wanted to be more explicit I could do this

cat sample.bin | dd if=- of=- destination.bin

or even

cat sample.bin | dd if=- of=destination.bin

would copy the file in chunks of 512 bytes. The pipe symbol has
a buffer which is larger than that, so the chunks are probably
of no consequence. Running dd with default bs=512 is usually
pretty slow and only does around 13MB/sec.

*******

There's also things like clonezilla. For example, making an exact
copy of one terabyte disk to a second terabyte disk. Sometimes you
get lucky, and they're the same size. Since you have the
sudo fdisk command to check the exact size of each drive, you
can check the drives before deciding what to do. I've not used
clonezilla, so cannot give a rundown on any "tricks".

https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu...ll-clonezilla/

Paul

On 24/02/2018 08:07, Mike S wrote:

You can do a startup repair and then a complete 10 repair install with a
free w10 dvd (you d/l the iso for).

w10 disk image
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

As I'm using a Mac, I was redirected to this URL to download the ISO:-

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...d/windows10ISO

Once I burn the ISO to a disk will it be 'bootable' or will additional
action be required first?

If you can't boot from the hdd, boot from the dvd and run the startup
repair. If that is successful and you can boot from the hdd you can
reinstall all of the w10 system files while retaining your programs,
settings, and data, if needed.

w10 repair install procedure
https://neosmart.net/wiki/windows-10...-installation/

That is helpful advice!

--
David B.

David B. wrote:
On 24/02/2018 08:07, Mike S wrote:

You can do a startup repair and then a complete 10 repair install with
a free w10 dvd (you d/l the iso for).

w10 disk image
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

As I'm using a Mac, I was redirected to this URL to download the ISO:-

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...d/windows10ISO

Once I burn the ISO to a disk will it be 'bootable' or will additional
action be required first?

It requires dancing a jig on one foot.

When Windows is installed on more than a 100 million machines, would
distributing a broken image work ? How many people would ever
figure it out ?

If 100 million people phone the Microsoft support line with
"help me convert the ISO I downloaded into something useful",
how many Tier 0 employees do you think that's going to take
to help them out ? The telephone switch board will be absolutely jammed
for months and months.

Common sense tells you "it's supposed to work".

*******

Doing that from a Mac, comes with a risk. This risk also extends to
users on WinXP and Linux as well.

Downloads are handled two ways. On more modern platforms, BITS is
used to supervise the download (Microsoft gives you a stub EXE downloader
to use, and it calls BITS). The Microsoft servers seem to work
well with the BITS option. The stub downloader handles any post-processing
duties. A typical stub might be on the order of 5MB in size.

But a number of years back, regular HTTP downloads from the Microsoft
site, would become truncated during download. Sometimes around the
2GB mark, both ends of the transaction would just "stop" (no error message!).
And the ISO file would be ruined. You might not notice until you burned
the ISO, and maybe ImgBurn complained the structure wasn't right. I
saw this on Linux. I saw it on WinXP.

I got a number that way so I've actually experienced this first hand.
I detected them purely on size, before doing anything with the result.
But other download attempts ran to completion, just like normal.
The problem is intermittent.

This has also happened to other, non Windows 10 files. The bug
seemed to spread from the Windows distribution servers, into
other servers in the Microsoft CDN. The catalog server started
doing it. I got a bad 500MB Cumulative one day via HTTP.

You can convert an HTTP type download, into a BITS download via Powershell.
It's the Powershell equivalent of "wget". And it seems to work properly.
Why this makes a different, who can guess. A Linux user can't do this,
but someone on a Windows box could use it.

http://superuser.com/questions/36215...ows-powershell

(Start PowerShell, then try...)

Import-Module BitsTransfer === some older Windows maybe...
Start-BitsTransfer -source "http://urlToDownload"

where the URL to download would be pointing at the actual
file the catalog server is supposed to give you.

That's a way of converting an "unreliable" Microsoft
download, one where you were informed your download was
corrupted at some later point in time, into something
you can actually use.

Microsoft never admitted it was broken.

Microsoft never announced it was fixed.

Doing HTTP downloads from any other web site than a Microsoft
one, are not affected. It's not a networking stack problem
(especially as the bug is visible cross-platform).

A little trivia for you.

By all means, continue to download files via HTTP with your Mac.
But if the 2.5GB or 3.5GB ISO files seem "a tad short",
you have a place to start.

Even the breaking point in the download is not consistent.
It isn't a problem at exactly 2^31 for example. I did the
math on some of them, and no pattern of note emerged. And
it hardly ever breaks at the beginning.

Paul

Mike S wrote:

You can do a startup repair and then a complete 10 repair install with a
free w10 dvd (you d/l the iso for).

This Windows 10 Pro update bricking happened just after the first reboot of
the system after 3 consecutive sets of daily failed Windows 10 software
updates on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of January.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...update_010.jpg

w10 disk image
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/soft...load/windows10

The Microsoft Tier2 telephone technical support (+1-800-642-7676) tried all
the Windows recovery options (save one) from the bricked boot disk, all of
which failed.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...tup_repair.jpg

Microsoft telephone support also tried the same set of all but one recovery
options using a DVD that he downloaded and burned for me when I gave him
control over a good Windows 10 desktop.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...dvd_repair.jpg

If you can't boot from the hdd, boot from the dvd and run the startup
repair.

That fails because Microsoft Windows 10 Pro update bricked the OS.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/reset_pc_02.jpg

If that is successful and you can boot from the hdd you can
reinstall all of the w10 system files while retaining your programs,
settings, and data, if needed.

I already bought a new HDD and installed Windows 10 Pro and even had
Microsoft Software Specialists install for me Office 2007 Pro over the
phone by taking over control of my system yesterday.

SOLVED: How to download an ISO image for Office 2007 Pro in the year 2018
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...al/7ru4_AyhPCY

http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/reset_pc_04.jpg

w10 repair install procedure
https://neosmart.net/wiki/windows-10...-installation/

The data is the only thing I care about since programs and operating
systems are all free (sort of) and readily available.

For the data, I'm trying the various methods (Knoppix, Testdisk, Recuva,
PhotoRec, DDRescue, etc.) all of which have much promise and where I saved
a lot of the data last night using Knoppix (although I ran into an issue
with "splicing" files that I need to resolve.

In addition, for the bricked operating system, I have an appointment at the
Microsoft Genius Bar over at the Westfield Mall in the middle of Silicon
Valley on Stevenscreek Blvd in Santa Clara (+1-408-454-5940) who have hours
from midnight to midnight so it's easy to make an appointment with them.

The good news, on topic for rec.photo.digital, is that I have been
transferring photos from the phone of the repair process over to the newly
installed Windows 10 Pro PC without any issues, either via WiFi pver the
LAN, Bluetooth over ad-hoc services, or over USB cable (it just works).
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/6xt104k.jpg

Paul wrote:

Once I burn the ISO to a disk will it be 'bootable' or will additional
action be required first?

It requires dancing a jig on one foot.

The Tier 2 Microsoft support person at +1-800-642-7676 took control of
another Windows 10 Pro system to download, burn, test, and run the same
sequence of repair that we ran (and failed at) using the bricked Windows 10
Pro recovery console.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...dvd_repair.jpg

For the data, Knoppix worked just fine, but I am getting a very common
error from Knoppix on files that shouldn't have that error, where, when I
google for the error, NONE of the common causes can possibly be why I'm
getting that error.
Error splicing file: Value too large for defined data type.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...x_error_01.jpg

The odd thing is that /all/ the root causes of that common error on the net
don't apply here, because the Knoppix boot alone exhibits the problem when
I copy the file to /tmp staying completely within the Knoppix file system
for the destination file.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/...x_error_02.jpg

On the net, the common reasons for that common error don't apply:
- It doesn't seem to be an NTFS issue since all the HDDs are NTFS
- It has nothing to do with the 4GB limit on file size

When Windows is installed on more than a 100 million machines, would
distributing a broken image work ? How many people would ever
figure it out ?

The second tier Microsoft support tech told me it's pretty common, saying
the reasons are many.
1. It could be a driver conflict
2. It could be a setup conflict
3. It could be a CPU conflict (the AMD CPUs were harder hit than Intel)
4. It could be a corrupted HDD (which is always a possibility)
5. It could be that I customized something that Microsoft didn't like
etc.

The Microsoft Genius Bar personnel (or whatever they're called) should be
able to allow me to tell you more when I go to my appointment.

If 100 million people phone the Microsoft support line with
"help me convert the ISO I downloaded into something useful",
how many Tier 0 employees do you think that's going to take
to help them out ? The telephone switch board will be absolutely jammed
for months and months.

I have to admit they spent at least an hour downloading, installing, and
activating Microsoft Office 2007 Pro yesterday, and a different tech spent
at least three hours trying to repair my bricked system. They will likely
spend a few more hours at the Microsoft Genius Bar (or whatever it's
called), where they'll have access to all the information in the support
ticket that has been filed to determine what the bug is due to.

I'll let you know more when I know more, but the net is that Knoppix was
the first data-recovery system I've tried, as per your suggestion to back
up the data BEFORE going to the Microsoft Genius Bar (or whatever it's
called). I'll try the other methods, where I'm confident that the data will
be recovered since there's nothing wrong with the hard disk drive as far as
I can tell.

http://wetakepic.com/images/2018/02/24/boot_device.jpg