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The software does not NEED to be exactly for that purpose. But basically the issue is that I'm trying to copy files from an old external HDD that fell hard on the ground at least three times. I was unable to find any data fault on it - anything I copy is just fine - but it will sometimes disconnect during copying, or the copying will be slow.

I have noticed that in general, copy command line command on Windows is way faster than Windows Explorer.

So I am looking for software that:

  • Can copy at least as fast as copy
  • Can resume operation after the HDD disconnects
  • Reports progress

Can be a command line utility or a program with GUI. It does not need to be able to recover anything that is corrupted - I am not aware of any corrupted files.

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    IMHO you need a data recovery software. Even though I'm a Windows user, in such cases I boot up my PC from Linux and use dd_rescue. In general, the way Windows mounts drives will result in write operations, which are dangerous on damaged disks. – Thomas Weller Aug 27 at 19:54
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    AFAIK, robocopy has a mode which allows resuming an interrupted copy. It's also a command line tool and as good as copy. superuser.com/questions/1514911/… – Thomas Weller Aug 27 at 19:55
  • Try ccleaner.com/recuva or Unstoppable copier - sorry, but it is far too late to post a good answer, but these are worth investigating/ Good luck – Mawg says reinstate Monica Oct 2 at 22:31
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Forget copying a file at a time. If the HDD is no longer trustworthy, make a complete image of the whole drive. This has the least chance of further damaging the drive, since it runs as one smooth operation, reading at the sector level, rather than repeatedly starting and stopping. Some suggested free imaging software:

The best way to create the image is by installing the software on a USB. Reflect, for example, can create a live USB with WinRE (AKA WinPE). Booting from the USB device avoids writing to the HDD, further damaging it.

Once the image is created, much more rapidly than by file copying, you have access to all the files in the image.

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  • It's an external HDD. But doing an image sounds like a good idea anyway, except I'll need to find where to put the image. – Tomáš Zato - Reinstate Monica Sep 1 at 8:28

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