Trouble recovering ext3 partition
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When asking for technical support:
- Search for posts on the same topic before posting a new question.
- Give clear, specific information in the title of your post.
- Include as many details as you can, MOST POSTS WILL GET ONLY ONE OR TWO ANSWERS.
- Post a follow up with a "Thank you" or "This worked!"
- When you learn something, use that knowledge to HELP ANOTHER USER LATER.
Before posting, please read https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.pdf
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
Still stuck with this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
I've checked both log files, partition table type Intel and None
Only your Linux partition containing your OS and your swap partition are recoverable.
I didn't find any partition starting at the beginning of your disk which ends before your your OS partition starts.
The other found partitions would overlap your OS partition.
Partitions which overlap your OS partitions can't use the same space.
I'm not as much a linux tech savvy and creating a loop device?
You should ask remy or write him a PM.
Your found partitions which ends after disk limit are far beyond the disk limit, almost half of it.
It means approximately 900 GB.
If a partition ends after disk limit and you make them visible and they don't list your files, you're not able to run fsck on it.
That's why I recommend datarecovery software to have a try to recover files from your media partition.
You can try photorec.
Infos:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step
Fiona
Only your Linux partition containing your OS and your swap partition are recoverable.
I didn't find any partition starting at the beginning of your disk which ends before your your OS partition starts.
The other found partitions would overlap your OS partition.
Partitions which overlap your OS partitions can't use the same space.
I'm not as much a linux tech savvy and creating a loop device?
You should ask remy or write him a PM.
Your found partitions which ends after disk limit are far beyond the disk limit, almost half of it.
It means approximately 900 GB.
If a partition ends after disk limit and you make them visible and they don't list your files, you're not able to run fsck on it.
That's why I recommend datarecovery software to have a try to recover files from your media partition.
You can try photorec.
Infos:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec_Step_By_Step
Fiona
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
Thanks so much for your help Fiona! I've run photorec and it was able to recover about 500GB of data, which is impressive but far from the 1.5TB I've lost. It also wasn't able to preserve the file names or folder structure
What does testdisk mean when it reports that it has found an
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
Does this mean it found a backup superblock? Is there a way to use that info to mount my old partition?

What does testdisk mean when it reports that it has found an
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
Does this mean it found a backup superblock? Is there a way to use that info to mount my old partition?
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
The partition found beginning @ 0/32/33 seems a good match, but with file-system corruption. You may try to mount or fsck with a superblock, but as far as it may create modifications on the file-system, you should before, in my opinion, duplicate your disk using a bit2bit copying tool like gnuddrescue.
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
I think the partition at 0/32/33 is the new ext4 partition which overwrote the ext3 partition I am trying to recover. I'm not having any trouble mounting this partition.
Is this the partition you're talking about?
I'm interested in mounting the 1979GB ext3 partition testdisk is detecting.
Is testdisk reporting these partitions because it is detecting backup superblocks from the deleted ext3 partition? If so, is there any way to calculate the location of the ext3 backup superblock from the reported CHS values?
Code: Select all
Analyse Disk /dev/sda - 2000 GB / 1863 GiB - CHS 243201 255 63
Geometry from i386 MBR: head=255 sector=63
Current partition structure:
1 * Linux 0 32 33 242695 181 46 3898904576
I'm interested in mounting the 1979GB ext3 partition testdisk is detecting.
Code: Select all
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/14752, s_mnt_count=24/26, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 483398437
recover_EXT2: part_size 3867187496
Linux 121584 0 1 362305 73 32 3867187496
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
This partition ends after the disk limits. (start=1953246960, size=3867187496, end=5820434455, disk end=3907029168)
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/14752, s_mnt_count=24/26, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 483398437
recover_EXT2: part_size 3867187496
Linux 121585 9 25 362306 82 56 3867187496
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
This partition ends after the disk limits. (start=1953263616, size=3867187496, end=5820451111, disk end=3907029168)
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/14752, s_mnt_count=24/26, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 483398437
recover_EXT2: part_size 3867187496
Linux 121593 179 59 362314 253 27 3867187496
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
This partition ends after the disk limits. (start=1953402880, size=3867187496, end=5820590375, disk end=3907029168)
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/14752, s_mnt_count=24/26, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 483398437
recover_EXT2: part_size 3867187496
Linux 121599 112 50 362320 186 18 3867187496
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
This partition ends after the disk limits. (start=1953495040, size=3867187496, end=5820682535, disk end=3907029168)
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
depending on your geometry (probably X/255/63) to compute LBA on CHS value the formula is :
LBA = 255*63*C + 63*H +S - 1
But as said before, it's not a good idea to run fsck without having made before a security copy of your drive…
Better try a mount read-only.
LBA = 255*63*C + 63*H +S - 1
But as said before, it's not a good idea to run fsck without having made before a security copy of your drive…
Better try a mount read-only.
Re: Trouble recovering ext3 partition
So to mount using the backup superblock reported by testdisk
C=121584 H=0 S=1
I'd use
Or do I need to convert the LBA into something else for mount to understand it?
Code: Select all
recover_EXT2: s_block_group_nr=0/14752, s_mnt_count=24/26, s_blocks_per_group=32768, s_inodes_per_group=8192
recover_EXT2: s_blocksize=4096
recover_EXT2: s_blocks_count 483398437
recover_EXT2: part_size 3867187496
Linux 121584 0 1 362305 73 32 3867187496
ext3 blocksize=4096 Large file Sparse superblock Recover, 1979 GB / 1844 GiB
This partition ends after the disk limits. (start=1953246960, size=3867187496, end=5820434455, disk end=3907029168)
I'd use
Code: Select all
mount -t ext3 -o ro,sb=255*63*121584+63*0+1-1