trying to recover windows ntfs disk from xen hba / lvm vol
Posted: 17 Apr 2013, 01:31
I want to briefly explain how I broke it as it may affect how I should search.
I was reinstalling xen (no lvm backup info) and it prompted to reinitialize the "hardware hba" drive used for virtual machines. Believing i had a complete and working backup I let it.
Then I restored the first two backups. It was obvious backup#2 was not right.
Backup #2 was one of the later VM's - it consisted of a windows 2008 R2 install on a 35GB virtual disk and a 10GB data disk. The essential data is really the data disk but ideally both file systems would be recovered.
I've been looking for details. I need to recover word documents, excel files, quickbooks files, etc. I suspect they may be fragmented within the virtual hd - but if I can recover that whole (which should not be fragmented) that the underlying file system may hold the files complete.
I believe the best tack would be to recover the virtual hard drives themselves if possible. I know the name of the VM - but not the exact folder name it was stored in as this is sort of hidden in xen. (at least hidden to me).
On the xen support list it was suggested I try testdisk - but not how to use it - especially specific to my situation.
For what it's worth, it's my mistake - I own it - and am willing to pay for support / assistance if this is possible.
Please let me know if there is any information I can provide further to improve your advice / or if there is anyone with experience in such a recovery? In respect for other board users if you are offering consulting assistance please send a private message if possible?
Thank you in advance.
I was reinstalling xen (no lvm backup info) and it prompted to reinitialize the "hardware hba" drive used for virtual machines. Believing i had a complete and working backup I let it.
Then I restored the first two backups. It was obvious backup#2 was not right.
Backup #2 was one of the later VM's - it consisted of a windows 2008 R2 install on a 35GB virtual disk and a 10GB data disk. The essential data is really the data disk but ideally both file systems would be recovered.
I've been looking for details. I need to recover word documents, excel files, quickbooks files, etc. I suspect they may be fragmented within the virtual hd - but if I can recover that whole (which should not be fragmented) that the underlying file system may hold the files complete.
I believe the best tack would be to recover the virtual hard drives themselves if possible. I know the name of the VM - but not the exact folder name it was stored in as this is sort of hidden in xen. (at least hidden to me).
On the xen support list it was suggested I try testdisk - but not how to use it - especially specific to my situation.
For what it's worth, it's my mistake - I own it - and am willing to pay for support / assistance if this is possible.
Please let me know if there is any information I can provide further to improve your advice / or if there is anyone with experience in such a recovery? In respect for other board users if you are offering consulting assistance please send a private message if possible?
Thank you in advance.