The question is whether the fact the device is a hybrid disk has any (and what) importance when using dd or other such tools, or if all operations run the same as for a HDD.
The context
The device in question is a Seagate ST1000LM014.
I used this command to make a backup before sending the laptop in for repairs (soundcard): dd if=/dev/sdb conv=sync,noerror bs=64K | gzip -c | split -b 2000m - ./sdb_backup.gz.
Predictably the HP service guys formatted the drive, just because. I have no reason (yet) to suspect they swapped it.
I restored the data: cat sdb_backup.gz.* | gunzip -c | dd of=/dev/sdb conv=sync,noerror bs=64K
Now all that is visible from another Windows is the recovery partition, and gdisk -l /dev/sdb
gives me:
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT. Disk /dev/sdb: 1953525164 sectors, 931.5 GiB Logical sector size: 512 bytes Disk identifier (GUID): {{I removed it}} Partition table holds up to 128 entries First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 1953525130 Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries Total free space is 14851 sectors (7.3 MiB) Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name 1 2048 1333247 650.0 MiB 2700 Basic data partition 2 1333248 1865727 260.0 MiB EF00 EFI system partition 3 1865728 2127871 128.0 MiB 0C01 Microsoft reserved ... 4 2127872 1907614565 908.6 GiB 0700 Basic data partition 5 1907615744 1909415935 879.0 MiB 2700 6 1909415936 1953513471 21.0 GiB 0700 Basic data partition
gparted shows "unknown" for the type of the first 4 partitions. sdb4, at least, was supposed to be ntfs, but won't mount as such, or ntfs-3g - mount -r -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb4 /media/myusername/sdb4
gives:
NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sdb4': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sdb4' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS.
But that's enough background, I think. I've tried many things for this error, failed to fix. I am not asking for a solution here.
sdb_backup.gz*
, but your second says you're restoring fromsda_backup.gz.*
files.