Recover Files From non booting SBS server

lineman60 · 12-07-2008, 07:47 PM

I am Running SBS 2k3, on raid 5, the other partition on the raid (a dell utility) boots. With the raid drivers, system sees the drive. Booted to the windows recovery ran chkdsk /r and /p came back with 'The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems' . I then booted to Helix rescue cd (v3) and the drive shows up as an Unknow partition in Gparted. Ran fdsik -l and it returnd a file system id # 7, NTFS. tried to force mount as NTFS but it errors out with, "dosen't have a vaild ntfs".
Any ideas on how to repair the file system, force linux to mount it as NTFS, or get to the data on the drive?

stress_junkie · 12-07-2008, 08:32 PM

If your machine is using a software raid then you can boot a live Linux CD and use dmraid to try to reconstruct the raid array.

Code:

dmraid -ay

I've done this on Dell machines running Windows. It works but you will see a bunch of different raid devices. Only one of them is the real thing. You can try mounting the most promising one and hope for the best.

Then start using a daily backup so you don't have to ever recover data from a broken raid array again. Back up your data to an external hard disk. Tapes are so 20th century.

IMO raid is more trouble than it is worth. Just use a simple disk configuration and BACK UP YOUR DATA EVERY DAY!

lineman60 · 12-07-2008, 08:57 PM

No such luck, Raid is a Perc5/i (hardware), the Dell utilities wich are stirpted across the raid (at least what Dell tech said) the fact that i can boot in to that and that the in the Perc BIOS show raid as optmal makes me think the raid is good.

stress_junkie · 12-07-2008, 09:09 PM

If the hardware raid is okay then you might be able to boot a Linux live CD. I often use the System Rescue CD to fix Windows machines. You can try to mount the partition using ntfs-3g and make a tar copy of the partition onto an external disk drive. I do this quite often since I support Windows machines in work. I get a lot of calls for data recovery. The System Rescue CD is very handy.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

About backups: I know that server backup software is very very expensive. I sympathize.

lineman60 · 12-08-2008, 01:36 AM

cool, Using Helix to no avail. will try that, imaging the system right now. will know on Monday.

lineman60 · 12-08-2008, 02:47 PM

Crossed posted @
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...c0100675ab2f41

Used Heilx to make image of Bad partion to usb drive
useing http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-downloads.htm to access image will try to let you know how it turns out. (still scanning drive).

hal8000b · 12-08-2008, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lineman60

Ran fdsik -l and it returnd a file system id # 7, NTFS. tried to force mount as NTFS but it errors out with, "dosen't have a vaild ntfs".
Any ideas on how to repair the file system, force linux to mount it as NTFS, or get to the data on the drive?

Not sure if youve tried this but I've often gained access to NTFS file systems from a live knoppix this.
I install ntfsprogs apt-get install ntfsprogs then used ntfsfix to mount the partition e.g. ntfsfix /dev/hda1
Ntfsfix just resets the flag on a dirty volume then you can reboot and run chkdsk from windows or try and force it to mount.

lineman60 · 12-14-2008, 11:49 PM

Na, it was a File system problem. got it fixed using testdisk on the rescue cd,
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk