lost fat32 partition during resize. Is it possible to recover some files?

gkiagia · 07-23-2006, 04:56 AM

I used partition panager (under windows) to resize a fat32 partition on my external hard drive in order to create a boot partition to install linux. For some unknown reason, the computer freezed during the operation (hd idle, mouse not moving, keyboard out of order...), so I had to reboot. Foolishly, I hadn't created partition manager's recovery cdrom, so I booted into windows again and run partition manager again and altough it detected the abnormal termination, it seems that it didn't finish the operation. I used chkdsk to fix partition errors and all I got is files in the format filexxxx.chk.

Now my question. I had some iso images in there that I want to recover. (I had lots of other files too, but I have kept a backup of the most important ones and I don't care about the others). I tried mounting some big chk files (600+ MB), as most of the iso images were of this size. I used

Code:

mount -t iso9660 filexxxx.chk /mnt/image -o loop,ro

However, mount doesn't work and dmsg|tail says

Code:

Unable to identify CD-ROM format.

So, is it possible to recover those isos (or at least some of them)?

unSpawn · 07-23-2006, 05:33 AM

To try and recover partition table running GNU/Linux try:
Gpart
Testdisk
Parted
* some Live CDs have these already.

If you don't have "magic" installed on MICROS~1 and you can't load a Live or Rescue CD to test .chk files on try
WhatFormat (shareware): http://www.jozy.nl/whatfmt.html

To rename MICROS~1 .chk files from try (all freeware, windows apps)
Uncheck/FileCHK http://www.ericphelps.com/uncheck/
CHK-mate http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/chkmate.htm

To recover files from (V)FAT running GNU/Linux try
Fatback: (also on the Biatchux/FIRE CD): http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/b...ack-1.3.tar.gz
Foremost ("magic" based): http://foremost.sourceforge.net/foremost.html
Magic Rescue ("magic" based): http://jbj.rapanden.dk/magicrescue/
The Sleuth Kit: http://www.sleuthkit.org/sleuthkit/

gkiagia · 07-23-2006, 07:57 AM

Thanks for the reply. I'll try those tools.

gkiagia · 07-23-2006, 09:15 AM

Really thanks. I used foremost and got many useful files back. I will try again when I clean up my internal hard disk to be able to save all recovered files.
About the isos, though, foremost actually recovered the contents of the isos but not the isos themselves.

Exactly as I expected it.
Anyway, thanks again.