Any way to recover files from faulty R-Pi SD card?

I have a couple of Pi boards and three or four RISC OS SD boot cards. Unfortunately, the card I’ve been using most and therefore the one with all my recent work on it has decided to sulk and refuses to boot. The green ACT light comes on for about 40 secs and then goes off, leaving the red power light and no other activity.

It wouldn’t bother me if it wasn’t for all the RISC OS files I’ve created on it over the last few weeks. Is there any way to view the filecore partion and drag off any accessible files. When I view the card via a USB card reader, all I can see are the Fat32 files (Config.txt, Risc OS image, etc.).

Can you boot from a good card, then swap over to the one that doesn’t boot? If you can access the recent files that way, then FTP them away somewhere safe and replace the original card and grab them back. I’ve happily swapped SD cards around while RISC OS has been running.

Thanks Neil. I’ll try that.

Excellent – that worked!

By swapping cards I was able to backup the old faulty one to a USB drive (dismounting each card first of course). In the process, one file – LOADER/BIN – wouldn’t copy and was flagged as having a disc error. So I replaced that file on the bad SD card with a copy from a good card and now it boots as normal (phew!). So a lot of work saved – thanks.

Obviously, the repaired card is now suspect and will need replacing ASAP. And I’ve once again been reminded of the importance of keeping an up-to-date backup of important files ;-)