I had a disk crash.

I will be doing a data recovery when I feel I am ready to do it.

I anticipate a 10% data loss, but since the drive is/was 1/2 full/empty, I will call that a 5%-10% data loss.

Question concerning copying the data from the recovered drive to a new drive:

Usually, I would use rsync to do the copy, but since my crashed drive has some damage, I don't trust rsync in this case. Neither do I trust a GUI application, so I am probably reduced to using a cp command.

(additionally, since I am not copying the whole shooting match, a dd command would be of no use)

Am I correct that that the cp command is the best option in my situation?

Is there a better (faster, more reliable) option for this type of data recovery?

Just asking.

((PS: I will be doing the recovery on Wednesday, 11 May 2016))

And, as always, thank you for your advice and opinions.

cp will work as well as anything else. The problems that you will have will arise from hardware errors. All of the programs you mention will face the same problems and whether you are able to recover the data does not have much to do with which program you chose to use.

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Steve Stites

Thank you Jailbait,
Just doing a sanity check.

did you try some free data recovery programs? Like Recuva.

Yup.

The drive cannot initialize, so no tool will work, as the drive isn't showing up in the BIOS.