Recover partition

Flora · 11-05-2011, 08:43 AM

Guys, I'm in big trouble: I can't mount my system partition anymore. So I booted a live ubuntu and this is my fstab -l output:

Code:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1              63      401624      200781   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda2   *      401625    56612976    28105676    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3        56614910   488396799   215890945    5  Extended
/dev/sda5        56614912   470808575   207096832   83  Linux
/dev/sda6       470810624   488396799     8793088   82  Linux swap / Solaris

When I try to mount sda5, I get an error and the syslog says:

Code:

[  256.841098] EXT4-fs (sda5): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[  285.090764] EXT3-fs (sda5): error: can't find ext3 filesystem on dev sda5.
[  285.104868] EXT2-fs (sda5): error: can't find an ext2 filesystem on dev sda5.
[  285.112899] EXT4-fs (sda5): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[  285.129761] FAT-fs (sda5): bogus number of FAT structure
[  285.129771] FAT-fs (sda5): Can't find a valid FAT filesystem
[  285.144889] SQUASHFS error: Can't find a SQUASHFS superblock on sda5

I think the type is ext4.

Right now, I'm running "dd if=/dev/sda of=/media/WD/backup.img" to create a backup and then I would like to attempt a recovery of the partition. Can anyone advise me on how to do that?

Thank you so much,
Flo

--
Kubuntu 11.10 on Dell Latitude E6500

Peacedog · 11-05-2011, 09:02 AM

Hi Flora, Welcome to LQ. Providing this is a software problem and not a hardware problem TestDisk will be your best bet.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Good luck. ;-)

Flora · 11-05-2011, 11:06 AM

Thanks for the hint! I ran an analysis, but I'm unsure how to proceed. This is the output:

Code:

TestDisk 6.11, Data Recovery Utility, April 2009
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org

Disk /dev/sda - 250 GB / 232 GiB - CHS 30402 255 63

     Partition                  Start        End    Size in sectors

 1 * FAT16 >32M               0   1  1    24 254 63     401562 [DellUtility]
 2 P HPFS - NTFS             25   0  1  3523 254 63   56211435 [OS]
 3 E extended LBA         11514   0  1 30401 254 63  303435720
 5 L Linux                11514   1  1 12507 254 63   15968547
 6 L Linux Swap           29306 154 33 30401 254 63   17597506

The only promising-sounding option I have is to write this partition table. Is that worth a shot?

Or should I rather try to restore the superblock, e.g. as described here?

I'll do whatever you think sounds more promising

Thanks again!
Flo

Peacedog · 11-05-2011, 07:23 PM

The partition table looks intact. Have you ran fsck yet?

Good luck. ;-)

eeekster · 11-05-2011, 11:59 PM

Have you looked at the SMART data to see if the drive is failing?

Flora · 11-06-2011, 07:37 AM

Thanks for all your help. After the backup I made with "dd", I ran "sudo fsck.ext4 -v" and now I can mount the partition!
Thanks so much!

Peacedog · 11-06-2011, 11:39 AM

Glad you got it sorted.

Good luck. ;-)