mkext2fs -c -c -v /dev/sda disaster

orange.toaster · 08-08-2009, 11:43 PM

So I typed "mkext2fs -c -c -v /dev/sda" to find the badblocks on a harddrive that had corrupted some files on it. However, it was running much too long so I terminated the process to try again with only one -c.
Thats when I realised this was a horrible idea, since my superblock had now been overwritten. What was also horrible is that fdisk /dev/sda returned an error and will not detect the disk.

Is there anything that I can do to save my drive?

Thanks.

MiKOTRON · 08-09-2009, 02:36 AM

Huh... did you type mke2fs -c -c -v /dev/sda? The extra "-c" uses a read-write test makeing the whole process a lot slower.

What's the error you get when you type in "fdisk /dev/sda"? Did you try "fdisk /dev/hda" yet?

Just a thought...

tallship · 08-09-2009, 11:54 AM

You might want to start here to see what's actually salvagible: http://www.sleuthkit.org/sleuthkit/desc.php

jay73 · 08-09-2009, 03:28 PM

I believe that ext3 makes copies of its superblock that are stored at fixed intervals. If you are lucky, you may be able to recover from one of those (using, for example, testdisk). I don't know whether that would apply to ext2 as well.