Preferred over dd for failing disks because it tracks progress and retries.
Section: Images and Clones
Recover an unhealthy disk with ddrescue
bash
bash
sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdb disk.img disk.logExplanation
Preferred over dd for failing disks because it tracks progress and retries.
Learn the surrounding workflow
Compare similar commands or jump into common fixes when this command is part of a bigger troubleshooting path.
Related commands
Same sheet · prioritizing Images and Clones
Write a raw image back to disk
Restore a disk image onto a target device.
Backup a GPT partition table
Save GPT headers and partition entries to a file.
Restore a GPT partition table backup
Restore GPT layout from a saved backup file.
Inspect a virtual disk image
Show image format, virtual size, and backing file info.
Convert a virtual disk image
Convert between raw, qcow2, and other image formats.