I made a big mistake and have NO backup.
motivation: I deleted one older partition and wanted to put the freed GiB to my /home-partition (ext3-formatted).
Everything was processed with a promising look (read-only test OK, ...) when my laptop decided to shutdown due to overheating ...
So I rebooted and took a look with GParted (running from Linux Mint 13 from a usb-stick):

As you can see, the original partition /device/sda5 with size 191 Gib (or so) is now 222 GiB and not readable.
So when it crashed during the process of moving the beginning (data) to the left (which would be the case if "increasing with space in before"), then there should be the data with a block of "nothing" in between. Only the rest of the data has to be moved and then the partition table has to be restored/recreated somehow.
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When I first tried to recover the sparse superblocks with system-tools I got:
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mint@mint ~ $ sudo mke2fs -n /dev/sda5
mke2fs 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
14614528 inodes, 58432387 blocks
2921619 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4294967296
1784 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872
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mint@mint ~ $ sudo e2fsck -b 2654208 -B 4096 /dev/sda5
e2fsck 1.42 (29-Nov-2011)
e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda5
The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>
Then I gave Testdisk a try (snippet from its logfile):
this is from the advanced view mode: there it suggests to try some sparse blocks, but this results in "bad magic number at the beginning of ..."
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Interface Advanced
Geometry from i386 MBR: head=255 sector=63
NTFS at 32219/15/53
NTFS at 32231/206/40
check_part_i386 failed for partition type 83
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=255 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=8 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=16 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=32 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=64 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=128 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=240 nbr=1
get_geometry_from_list_part_aux head=255 nbr=1
1 * Linux 0 1 1 2594 131 33 41680833
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock, 21 GB / 19 GiB
2 E extended LBA 2594 131 34 32219 15 52 475918336
X extended 2594 131 35 3120 226 50 8456191
6 L Linux Swap 2594 164 3 3120 226 50 8454144
SWAP2 version 1, pagesize=4096, 4328 MB / 4128 MiB
5 L Linux 3121 4 20 32218 254 62 467459098
3 P HPFS - NTFS 32219 15 53 32231 206 39 204800 [System-reserviert]
NTFS, blocksize=4096, 104 MB / 100 MiB
4 P HPFS - NTFS 32231 206 40 38913 37 36 107335680 [Festplatte]
NTFS, blocksize=4096, 54 GB / 51 GiB
search_superblock
search_superblock
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/158, s_mnt_count=1/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 2 (block=0, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 1
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 32768 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=1/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 262144 (block=32768, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 3
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 98304 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=3/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 786432 (block=98304, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 5
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 163840 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=5/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 1310720 (block=163840, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 7
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 229376 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=7/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 1835008 (block=229376, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 9
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 294912 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=9/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 2359296 (block=294912, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 25
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 819200 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=25/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 6553600 (block=819200, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 27
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 884736 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=27/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 7077888 (block=884736, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 49
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 1605632 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=49/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 12845056 (block=1605632, blocksize=4096)
block_group_nr 81
recover_EXT2: "e2fsck -b 2654208 -B 4096 device" may be needed
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=81/158, s_mnt_count=0/27, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 5210104
recover_EXT2: part_size 41680832
Ext2 superblock found at sector 21233664 (block=2654208, blocksize=4096)
Linux 0 1 1 2594 131 32 41680832
superblock 0, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 32768, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 98304, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 163840, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 229376, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 294912, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 819200, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 884736, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 1605632, blocksize=4096 []
superblock 2654208, blocksize=4096 []
To repair the filesystem using alternate superblock, run
fsck.ext3 -p -b superblock -B blocksize device
TestDisk exited normally.
TL;DR
Resized ext3-partition with GParted; Crash in between; impossible to recover data because partition-table is missing
What else can I try? Do I just use the wrong parameters for e2fsck?
How can I find the position where the moving-operation stopped?