Hard Disk Drive data recovery

[StefSSU]

Ok first off, long time MacRumors reader, finally joined the forum now in search of some aid.
There are some other threads on a similar topic I know, but I was hoping for some help with my situation specifically.

So, the Hard drive in question is a Western Digital 5400rpm 320gig purchased from Amazon about 8 months ago, now the Hard drive has decided to die. I saw some early signs, but did not realise that the drive was in that bad of a condition at the time. Now, when attempting to boot into Mac OS X I get stuck at the Apple logo, with the little wheel spinning infinitely. I had a boot camp partition which worked, but could not help me and is no longer an option either.
I tried using the Leopard boot disk, but Disk utility didnt do anything for me in terms of recovery or repair, I attempted to use the terminal to make an Image of the drive on an external, but it fails about 10% through, I'm assuming from corrupted data.
I removed the drive from the computer (MacBook, 2007) and connected it to my new Mac (MacBook Pro 15, took the plunge early as I needed a computer for my IB work) via an external firewire/usb box. The drive mounts on the Mac for about a minute before problems arise. SuperDuper! didnt help, neither did Carbon Copy Cloner. I can successfully mount the drive in Ubuntu Linux, but then when attempting to access my users files, I get some errors involving the permissions, and have no access. Curiously, I managed to copy my applications, but they all fail to launch on my new mac, I'm assuming they're corrupted, but the Package Contents dont show any corrupted files...

So, unfortunately I do not have access to professional help, so I am asking for any advice (I've noticed the drives condition deteriorating slowly, so am reluctant to start it until I have a viable solution), in any other software I could try, I have heard of Disk Warrior, and am now looking into that. Otherwise, if anyone has any tips on how to edit the permissions in Linux I would be grateful. Lastly, I am not completely adept in the Terminal, but if anyone could help me in understanding how to copy files using it it may just solve my problems, I do not know the command for listing structures and directories of my drive, and the copy function doesn't help me to copy an entire folder in my users Desktop directory, I am confident I can follow instructions with a bit of info on some commands if anyone can help..

Once again Thanks in advance for any advice or information on other software that I could use.

 

[Lanbrown]

Read this thread; this is where you should have started off. It was on the first page of topics too:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/747067/

There are links and suggestions for software in it.

 

[StefSSU]

Lanbrown,
I appreciate the reply very much, as well as the link. But as stated above I was looking for some specific help or really just some more information and advice from people who have been in my position. I did my homework, and I've known about all of the software listed in the thread (except for EnCase, which hardly seems appropriate), but am reluctant to start the drive again until I am sure that I will not be damaging it further. I am not a professional, I have no idea how to diagnose the error in my drive so that I can set about restoring the data properly. Listing software solutions is all well and good, but not very helpful when I don't know which to blow my money on and how to go about the recovery. I really don't want to have to resort to a trial and error process before simply destroying the drive when the data is likely easily recoverable at this point. Most of the mistakes people make in hardware failure is to attempt repairs and/or recoveries without any diagnose of the real problem imo.
All the same, thank you again for the reply.

 

[aaron11193]

have you tried using dd to get everything onto a new disk?

when you boot the install disk there is a terminal in the utilities menu.

 

[StefSSU]

have you tried using dd to get everything onto a new disk?

when you boot the install disk there is a terminal in the utilities menu.

I had heard of this option, but unfortunately I am not familiar of the dd command in the terminal. I was looking into it as I understood that I could use it to skip corrupted files by adding a "no error" to the command, but as it turns out I have solved my problem anyway. I installed Leopard from the new Mac onto an external firewire disk, used it to boot the old mac, and after some playing with the terminal (permissions) and Disk Utility, managed to force the drive to mount properly. I'm copying the files over as we speak!
The only snag I've run into, is whenever the finder runs into a corrupted file. The copy just freezes, and my only option is to reboot and start over skipping said file... as theyre quite a few corruptions this is taking quite a while. Does anyone know how I can tell finder to skip a corrupted file? I'm copying over 200 gigs of movies and music, so one by one will take forever.

Its a small issue anyway, the important files have already been recovered. Thanks very much for repiles Lanbrown and aaron11193.