This is my first time having to perform a data recovery for myself and on Linux.
I was performing a backup two nights ago and didn't get too far using terminator in Debian Linux 11 Bullseye & monitoring i/o (drive is old) using a terminal monitoring tool for hard drives. One of the "tops".
After an hour I looked over at my monitor to find the monitoring was stuck and I checked the clock and the system was frozen. Pretty fresh install w/ 64 gb's ram. I kept having difficulties with the system locking up when trying to back this drive up.
I did a cold shut down. I booted back up and my partition table was destroyed.
Instead of 1 EXT4 partition that I created using GParted; it showed 2 partitions:
Partition: /dev/sdb1 (CAUTION SYMBOL) | File System: unknown | Size: 582.19 GiB
Partition: unallocated | File System: unallocated | Size: 3.98 TiB
I immediately knew this was off. I did some googling and found TestDisk. I did as much research as I could and then realized it was the starting point to remedy.
I installed it on a Debian Laptop (Thinkpad T420) and ran an Analyse:
I chose "ENTER: to Continue" and it showed the following output:
Disk /dev/sdb - 5000GB / 4657 GiB - CHS 608001 255 63
Current partition structure:
Partition Start End Size in sectors
No ext2, JFS, Reiser, cramfs or XFS marker
1 P Linux 0 4 5 76000 41 9 1220942336
1 P Linux 0 4 5 76000 41 9 1220942336
No partition is bootable
I then ran "Quick Search":
To my surprise I got excited and it seen my EXT4 Partition with the proper label "DATASCIENCE-2019".
Disk /dev/sdb - 5000GB / 4657 GiB - CHS 608001 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
>* Linux 0 32 33 608001 74 9 9767538688 [DATASCIENCE-2019]
I navigated my in-tact looking Folders using "P: list files".
Then I pressed "ENTER: to Continue" and it showed the following output:
Disk /dev/sdb - 5000 GB / 4657 GiB - CHS 608001 255 63
Partition Start End Size in sectors
1 * Linux 0 32 33 608001 74 9 9767538688 [DATASCIENCE-2019]
and I chose [Write] "Write partition structure to disk".
Your awesome program told me to reboot for the change to take effect. I chose OK and then restarted and plugged in the drive again (USB) and I now see the drive attempt mount with errors. After scouring google for several hours trying to find the remedy. I think in the *very* beginning of opening TestDisk; it allowed me to choose between PC or GPT (I didn't know that drives over 2.2TB required GPT); I ended up choosing PC.
Before I wrote this partition structure to disk and rebooted. I looked online to find the "default GParted EXT4 partition type" to no avail finding the answer to choose the right one. I chose PC and struck out. (Obviously no fault of yours or your beautiful program).
So now I get the following (which is better; I wasn't able to even attempt to use fsck against a device that didn't have correct partitions pointing to my data). *So I currently feel that's a Win regardless*.
Here is the new message I get (at least I get a message)
"Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/brandon/DATASCIENCE-2019: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error"
I tried running the following commands:
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# e2fsck -f /dev/sdb1
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Error reading block 610303999 (Invalid argument). Ignore error<y>? no
Superblock has an invalid journal (inode 8).
Clear<y>? cancelled
e2fsck: The journal superblock is corrupt while checking journal for DATASCIENCE-2019
e2fsck: Cannot proceed with file system check
DATASCIENCE-2019: ************** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors *************
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# e2fsck -p /dev/sdb1
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Error reading block 610303999 (Invalid argument).
DATASCIENCE-2019: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
(i.e., without -a or -p options)
What would be anyone who is familiar with this type of situation, course of action for Remedy?
Any tips and pointers would be greatly appreciated! Thank you all for your time!
Best Regards,