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How to restore data after accidentally starting DD on a hard drive but stopping it before it went too far?

Let's look at answers in the supposed duplicate:

Click here in case you suspect corruption or bad sectors.

Not applicable IMO. One could argue the volume is 'corrupt' But corrupt in itself is a meaningless term. Question that was deemed duplicate is about a specific scenario, the answer in the wiki is not. Answer also treats bad sector same as 'corruption'.

For example, taking USB drive out of enclosure and thus skipping a hardware / translation layer makes sense when we're indeed dealing with bad sectors. But for someone that needs to recover data from a logical issue it's an extra hurdle that can be skipped. Or, checking health of the drive is always a good idea, but in case the cause of logical corruption is known it is relatively safe to assume no health issues.

Point is, the 'answer' treats very different issues as if it were the same. If the question is not flagged duplicate, a more specific answer is possible which could serve as wiki for partial overwrite for example. Which is a quite common issue and would thus potentially be useful for others as well.

Click here in case you suspect mechanical issues.

Not applicable IMO. The cause of the issue is known and it's not mechanical issues.

We have separate questions covering common problems with USB flash drives in greater detail:

Click here if your flash drive appears as an empty disk drive with no media inserted. Click here if your flash drive appears to be much smaller than it should. Click here if your flash drive is write-protected or read-only.

All different issues.

How does closing question as duplicate and link to supposed duplicate help anyone, I genuinely wonder. It appears as if anything that reeks of a data recovery related issue is deemed a duplicate of How do I recover lost/inaccessible data from my storage device? which IMO is nonsensical.

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    "Click here in case you suspect corruption or bad sectors." overwriting data by mistake counts as data corruption in terms of fixes. You are still trying to recover lost data.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 19:24
  • @DavidPostill; Disagree. Define corruption. And then, we need to relate specific corruption to a specific file system. The term corruption in itself is useless and does not describe any specifics.
    – user705502
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 19:48
  • Then, half the suggestions in actual answer (if not more) does not apply. So in the end, user with a very specific question situation ends up with a generic answer of which half does not apply to question asked / issue raised.
    – user705502
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 19:50
  • @DavidPostill; that is like referring all MS Word related questions to one wiki with argument, you're still trying to create a Word document IMO.
    – user705502
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 21:05
  • Please stop labouring your point. There is nothing stopping you voting to reopen and the community and or other mods will take a look at it.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 21:07
  • 3
    Isn't this meant to discuss, the meta? If not then I misunderstood the purpose of the meta.
    – user705502
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 21:08
  • It is meant to discuss. That doesn't mean you can continuously ping me about it.
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 21:09
  • 6
    Weird how this works. It appears this community is very noob unfriendly.
    – user705502
    Commented Nov 29, 2022 at 21:20
  • “Question that was deemed duplicate is about a specific scenario, the answer in the wiki is not.” - Questions are determined to be duplicates, if an answer to an existing question, answers another question. “It appears this community is very noob unfriendly.” - Your not a new user. Your profile is 5 years old. Closing a question as a duplicate isn’t a negative, it can be a positive, allowing multiple questions to be linked to highly useful answers. In this specific case your answer could easily answer the existing question.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Nov 30, 2022 at 13:48
  • @Ramhound, thank you. True my account is old, but I have only recently started participating actively. I am not following what you mean by 'your answer could easily answer..'. My answer is there because I was quicker than question being closed due to being deemed a duplicate. I'd argue questioner is better helped by my more specific answer than the supposed duplicate.
    – user705502
    Commented Nov 30, 2022 at 14:20
  • 2
    I am suggesting that the answer you submitted to the close question could seamlessly answer the duplicate. Which suggests that the closed question is indeed a duplicate
    – Ramhound
    Commented Dec 1, 2022 at 1:00
  • I don't see it. My answer is very specific tailored to the specific problem that was raised in closed question. It's not a one size fits all answer. Not all data loss scenarios are alike, even not all 'logical' issues or call it 'corruption' if you like are alike. Furthermore the answer linked to is a far cry from a good generic solution.
    – user705502
    Commented Dec 1, 2022 at 2:09
  • 1
    @Giacomo1968; That's a great idea, that may be the best idea, thanks. I will see if I am allowed to edit that canonical question.
    – user705502
    Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 0:55
  • 1
    @JoepvanSteen - The existing question does not need to be edited, in fact, your edits likely would not be improved depending on how the question was modified. Why don’t you try our suggestion of just answering the canonical question as it’s currently written? Keep in mind the users making this suggestion have thousands of answers between us. We are pretty knowledgeable across multiple knowledge domains
    – Ramhound
    Commented Dec 3, 2022 at 21:57
  • 2
    @JoepvanSteen unfriendly in general, not just noobs.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Dec 9, 2022 at 5:01

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