How do I determine file system type?

lowpro2k3 · 07-08-2005, 10:08 AM

I need to know for sure if my Red Hat server at work is using ext2 or ext3. Critical files were deleted, and it sounds like ext3 files are irrecoverable. I need to know if its ext2 because if it is we're sending it off for data recovery, but just the initial analysis costs boatloads, and the guy basically told me on the phone if its ext3 theres nothing they can do about it.

jtshaw · 07-08-2005, 10:13 AM

If the drive is still mountable then mount it and type "mount" on the command line.

You should see something like this:

Code:

[root@blah bin]# mount
/dev/cciss/c0d0p2 on / type ext3 (rw)
none on /proc type proc (rw)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
usbdevfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
/dev/cciss/c0d0p1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)

As you can see here, my /boot and / are ext3....

Thing I can't figure... ext2 and ext3 are the same file system... only difference is ext3 has the journal and ext2 doesn't.... The layout and everything is the same so I don't know why data recovery would be any different.

lowpro2k3 · 07-08-2005, 11:10 AM

Thanks

It turns out the system's 2 partitions ( / and /boot ) are both ext3 partitions. Surprisingly enough, the guys willing to charge us $1500-$5000 for recovery just told me ext3 data recovery is impossible because the inodes get zeroed out, but I'm still not convinced. We're looking around now at recovery software and many claim to be able to recover deleted ext3 files and directories, so I'm surprised these guys who were willing to remote login said it could not be done.

jayakrishnan · 07-08-2005, 01:19 PM

u can try some third party windows recovery tools which is used to recover files from linux partiton

have a look at this

http://www.data-recovery-software.ne...html/?GGLAW070

lowpro2k3 · 07-08-2005, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jayakrishnan
u can try some third party windows recovery tools which is used to recover files from linux partiton

have a look at this

http://www.data-recovery-software.ne...html/?GGLAW070

Thanks, but I just finished an afternoon of reading - file recovery due to deleted files is basically impossible under ext3 file systems, for some reason they zero out block pointers in the inode for crash recovery. Apparently the only way to recover deleted files is to grep for strings on your HDD - this sucks, but we're just going to rebuild.

lynxuser · 07-09-2005, 03:40 PM

try to type: df