After booting my computer one day, my computer routed me to the "grub rescue" shell. All the settings there seemed fine. I booted ubuntu from my usb drive to try to get to my ubuntu partition on my hard drive. I could get into some folders but trying to get into my home folder gave me an "Input/Output error".   Not able to access my files through usb drive ubuntu, I use the grub2 shell and I was able to access my files with the "cat" command and read them. Is there any way to transfer all my files from my hard drive to an external storage device?  PS: I have some very important files that I haven't backed up on my ubuntu partition of my hard drive.  Any help is much appreciated.  Thanks in advance.  EDIT: My smartctl checkup on the hard drive said that the health status is OK.
I have a 1TB FAILING hard drive, a brand new 1 TB hard drive, a bootable ubuntu usb, and a working computer.  All I need is a step by step process of how to safely clone as much data as possible from one to the other. NOTE: THE DRIVE IS FAILING.  I know I need to enable multiverse and then install and use ddrescue to complete the task. But everywhere I look online, I can't get a straight path to the task. I know that this can be all done within the terminal and that's what I seek.  How can I do this?
Display the original, unedited post on the post editing page I edit people's posts occasionally on ServerFault when the grammar/punctuation/coherence goes below a threshold that my OCD can handle. However, on some of the thornier posts I would like to be able to compare my edits to the original text, especially when doing a final proof-reading of my edits.  At the moment, my only options are to either copy the original text into a text editor or copy a duplicate of the text into the editing field. From there I can compare my edits to the original text and make sure I'm preserving the original meaning as I attempt to untangle less than optimal communication.  This request is somewhat similar to this Meta post: "" I have an object already created in blender, a tree, or a human, or a pipe.. and I need this to be drilled with multiple holes.   The holes are painted in an image, that is, it is an image that has a repeating an images pattern (they can be circles, squares, or any form).  Here are some examples for drilling-pattern: Is drinking water during or after a meal better? How to run a complete GUI as root? Why doesn't `sudo cd /var/named` work? I am working on vector auto-regression (VARs) and impulse response function (IRFs) estimation based on panel data with 33 individuals over 77 quarters.  How should this type of situation be analyzed?  What algorithm's exist for this purpose?  I would prefer to conduct these analyses in R, so if anyone is familiar with R code or a package designed for this purpose that they could suggest, that would be especially helpful. When using unicode-math, how do I get the original calligraphic alphabet back? I am happy with the great majority of what unicode-math does. But at times I find that I prefer a symbol the way it was before. With \varnothing and \complement, for example. In those cases I was able to save them under a different name before loading unicode-math, but this doesn't always work.  Right now I'm trying to access the \mathcal alphabet from plain LaTeX. How might I accomplish this?    Additional Question  I've been looking through unicode-math, trying to figure out where exactly the original \mathcal alphabet gets discarded, but I eventually gave up.  It would be interesting if someone could explain:   how/where the original \mathcal font is defined anyway, and what kind of 'switch' is thrown by unicode-math that makes it unavailable. Can I visit the USA as a VWP tourist immediately prior to entry on non-tourist visa? Here's my situation: I'm a UK citizen. I have an H-1B visa to work in the US as of 1 August. I also have a valid ESTA.  I would like to go to the US in July for a holiday, immediately prior to beginning my work. The holiday would be at the other end of the country from my work.  I can't enter with the H-1B as I can only enter the US on that visa 10 days prior to starting work.  Specific question: Would it be possible to visit the US in early July on the VWP, visit Canada/Mexico for a few days in late July, and re-enter the US with my H-1B visa?  General question: Is it possible to visit the US on the VWP, leave briefly, and re-enter on a different status (e.g. H, F, J, K, etc), without ever returning to one's home country?  I have posted this in Travel rather than Expatriates because, although in my specific case I have an H-1B visa, my question is more generally about VWP and travel, and I believe that it is applicable to travellers with non-immigrant visas.  There's a similar question , although that's about going to the US and before having the H-1B visa. Your answer is in another castle: when is an answer not an answer? I think we can all agree, this sucks:  If you've been around a little while, you've probably encountered hundreds of answers like this in various forums, some of them even marked as &quot;The Answer&quot; by well-meaning1 forum admins looking to close a thread. We could try to enumerate the commonly-observed problems with it...  Link is probably broken If link isn't broken, it's spam If link isn't spam, it's to some broadly-related resource that the answerer found by pressing &quot;I'm feeling lucky&quot; when googling the question's title.  ...but the real issue here is that we don't know! Even if the link was originally pointing directly to the most awesomeest answer ever for exactly the question being asked, there's nothing in the answer itself to even hint at what direction we're being pointed in. Strip the markup, and this is what you're left with:  i think you should take The tutorial HERE! This will help you a lot  Is there even one tiny speck of information there? No. Even the title of the page being linked to would have provided something to go on, but that was entirely too much work. So let me be clear: this sort of response is not an answer. If you see this, flag it. Moderators, if you see it flagged, delete it. There's really only one valid exception to this rule, and that's when the question is:  Suggest me some tutorials where i can learn quick.  Don't get me wrong, it's still a bad answer - but when the question is kinda asking for bad answers this is to be expected. Close or flag the question and move on - this is much more efficient than hanging around to babysit it by deleting every crap answer that inevitably shows up. If you're still reading, you're probably getting really bored by now. &quot;Gee, Shog - answers that contain ZERO information are terrible, horrible, very-bad things? What shocking revelations will you share next?&quot; Yeah. It's really simple... Except, . See, the problem is that once you step away from black-and-white &quot;answers / doesn't answer&quot; decision-making, things get... Interesting. And all those other answers with links in them See, this is an answer:  And so is this:  Yes, they're both very short, and yes, they contain links. But strip the markup, and you still get at least a little bit of useful information. Does that mean these answers should forever hang around the site? No, not necessarily - if it turns out they're just not that useful, they should probably still be removed - or at very least, down-voted so that they rank below other answers. Just remember: if the text of the post contains an honest attempt at answering the question, then it is an answer - so don't flag it otherwise, and if you do, don't complain if your flag gets declined. Answers &amp; Apples If you're still confused, forget about answers. Think about apples instead:  Answers are just like that, but less tasty in pies.  1 By which I mean to say, &quot;criminally lazy&quot; How can you handle an IN sub-query with LINQ to SQL? Entry to The US before 30-day grace period for student visa The F student visa allows me to enter the US up to 30 days before the program starts. For starting to set up things it is of my interest to arrive sooner than that. How hard is it to travel there beforehand with a tourist visa (waiver) and leave to, say Mexico, to then re enter on a proper date within the 30 days with the student visa? This seems easier than requesting for a status change inside the US from tourist to student.. Prove that the ideal $(X_1-a_1,...,X_n-a_n)$ is maximal in $K[X_1,\dots,X_n]$ Let $K$ be a field, and $a_1,\dots,a_n \in K$. Prove that the ideal $$(X_1-a_1,\dots,X_n-a_n)$$ is maximal in $K[X_1,\dots,X_n]$.   I tried proving that the only elements outside the ideal are the invertibles of $K$ (I should still prove that this implies maximality, but it shouldn't be too difficult).  Is there a better strategy, or another stategy? How to connect Selenium to an existing browser that was opened manually in java or create semi automated tests? I want to achieve some use cases in which:  I want to perform some tasks that require manual intervention before kicking in automation execution. For instance, I need to manually launch the browser, navigate to the desired page, perform some manual tasks like entering captcha manually and then run the automation script to continue from there.  Debugging – Let's say we are working on a test script for a certain page (product checkout) in the application. But the script to reach that page (add to cart) is not ready yet. We can manually launch the browser and navigate to that page and then run the automation script.  Can someone help me to achieve this type of scenario? I have recently installed lubuntu 11.10 on my old laptop (acer aspire 5315 celeron) and observed that fan is not working properly on lubuntu side.I find it strange that it is working perfectly under window vista.   How could I solve this problem? What do you call someone who pretends to be your friend but is actually your enemy?  A friend suggested spy for me, but that does not nearly describe the word I need for an English project. The character is very good at manipulating how people see him. He's a good liar. And pretends to be your friend but actually is your enemy. In , someone suggested in a  that I should not cast the result of malloc. i.e., I should do this: int *sieve = malloc(sizeof(int) * length);  rather than: int *sieve = (int *) malloc(sizeof(int) * length);  Why would this be the case? Nullable type issue with ?: Conditional Operator How do you remove duplicates from a list whilst preserving order? Is there a built-in that removes duplicates from list in Python, whilst preserving order? I know that I can use a set to remove duplicates, but that destroys the original order. I also know that I can roll my own like this:  def uniq(input):   output = []   for x in input:     if x not in output:       output.append(x)   return output   (Thanks to  for that .)  But I'd like to avail myself of a built-in or a more Pythonic idiom if possible.  Related question: Arrangements of a,a,a,b,b,b,c,c,c in which no three consecutive letters are the same Q: How many arrangements of a,a,a,b,b,b,c,c,c are there such that  $\hspace{5mm}$ (i). no three consecutive letters are the same?  $\hspace{5mm}$ (ii). no two consecutive letters are the same?  A:(i). 1314. ${\hspace{5mm}}$ (ii). 174.  I thought of using the General Principle of Inclusion and Exclusion along with letting $p_i$ denote a property that.. , and doing so, I will evaluate $E(0)$, which gives us the number of arrangements without any of the properties.   How do I go about doing that? I am trying to use the method stated above in solving this question, but I am unable to generalize the properties $p_i$. Add leading zeroes to number in Java?