How to restore deleted Fedora OS partition running FOG imaging application
 

Hello, I'm a new user of Linux and have had a major issue happen to my Fedora 10 installation which is used to run FOG imaging application.

My co-worker, in his haste to prepare a second drive for this imaging server, and running GPARTED for the very first time and not realizing he was on the drive which contained the Fedora10 OS deleted that partition.

I didn't realize this happened until he started reading to me the error message that all tasks weren't completed!
But the damage was already done.

Short of throttling him right there, I stopped him from restarting the box and it seemed to continue functioning ok.
In fact, I was able to use this FOG image server like there was nothing wrong with the partition, for about two weeks, right up to when it got restarted.
It seems that the OS was running in memory and we were able to see all data on the drive. We were able to upload and download images to it. It worked fine.

Until it got bounced....

We use this box to image desktop PCs for a company that was rolling out each desktop by hand. I had a backup mobile laptop Fedora/FOG machine and was able to retrieve my main desktop image before the old machine got rebooted and now on restart it fails to boot with the following error messages.

Volume Group "VolGroup00 not found
unable to access Resume device (dev/VolGroup00/logVol01)
mount: could not find filesystem/dev/root

I read that a Live Disk with GPARTED could fix the partition and tried that but there isn't anything in the menus that can repair the partition table.

What I'm looking for is either a Live Disk with some partitioning repair software on it or suggestions on the steps to take to recover the partition and/or repair it.

Basically, I want to retrieve the rest of my FOG images and the FOG computer registration database.

I might be new with LINUX but I've been working as an MCSE, CCNA maintaining and repairing servers, desktops and networks for fourteen years.
Of course, I work primarily with MS and learn things, like Linux, as needed to perform my tasks.

LINUX became a necessity when the company I support wanted an imaging solution that did not require a license per machine and FOG was their solution. No one here really knows LINUX but one person and he's not been to helpful since he's up to his eyeballs with network Auditors right now.

FOG works great! It's easy to understand and manipulate. I find Fedora 10, my first Linux OS, to be easy to use too.

I just need to find either a live Fedora or Ubuntu image that has partitioning recovery software on it. Either that or should I install Fedora or Ubuntu on another machine with the partitioning software and then attach this partitionless drive as a second disk and run the software on it like that and just get my images and database?

I was hoping there was something that could rewrite the lost table and MBR.

I greatly appreciate any suggestions or help you may offer,

thanks,

Christopher

Welcome to LQ. Sad to see it's on such an occasion...


Ah, so you do know about making backups ;-p


Booting the Fedora installer CD in rescue mode should enable you to run 'pvscan' on the disk to see if it can find the Physical Volumes that would make up the Volume Group. The KNOPPIX Live CD comes with 'testdisk' to help diagnose and correct MBR/PT/partition problems and its companion app 'photorec', a last resort tool to "carve" items it knows about from irrepairable disks. I'd like to see output from 'fdisk -l', 'pvscan -dv' 'vgscan -dv' and the log from running 'testdisk /log /debug /list' before actually doing anything to the disk. Please attach output/logs or use BB code tags. (And if you want to do something to the disk then now would be a good time to make a backup just in case.)

+1 for testdisk. Even an old guy like me has successfully used it to restore partitions on a disk that was "accidentally" formated.

Yes, of course, backups. <ahem> I pull lever until I see the letter "R" above the pointy thing, twist around in seat and look out rear window, push on flat plate-like thing on floor, and backup until I almost hit the nearest object, then move pointy thing to "D" and push on flat plate-like thing again to go forwards.

Yes, sorry for the inane banter, if you were working where I am, you'll realize that unless you steal time away from all the deskside support tickets and new computer refreshes coming at you, getting the LINUX box backed up wasn't as much a priority as I should have given it.

The attitude around here is so cavalier that earlier today, the guy that takes care of ordering all parts, computers, etc comes to me knowing full well that the FOG server (a desktop that is out of warranty BTW), is in bit bucket limbo, asks if I was using the mobile FOG laptop I built, which is all I have left right now, and if he could deploy it to someone for a couple hours!
OH, YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD MY REPLY, it was definitely in ALL CAPS!

Yes, I want to become all things LINUX, but I gotta refresh my CCNA before Sept 1.

I truly appreciate and have tons of respect for everyone here. And I'm a bit in awe of the linux lingo (language), but I'm a very fast learner and expect that if I dig in my heels and start sponging up some of the knowledge available here, I'll be helping out someone else the next time a thread like this opens from a new member seeking HELP!

Thanks again,

Chris

LOL, noted, and now for replying to the more important part of the reply?..

Thanks,

Yes, I wasn't ready to reply to the important part just yet, still doing the tasks that have besieged me since before this fiasco set upon me.

I have that particular box in a safe place on a shelf in a server rack until I can get time to attempt the recovery processes you've kindly posted for me.

I've been considering how I might make a copy of that disk that's had its partition deleted and wonder what software might be able to make that image possible.

I don't know if something called GHOST can do a RAW sector by sector copy of the disk or should I use a LINUX product? I'd attempt to use FOG but that laptop mobile fog server I've got needs a larger storage partition and I'm trying to allocate some space to move my images that are left.

Understand, I will have to build another LINUX box to attempt any recovery on the drive unless I just go for it and use the drive that's been whacked without any backups of it, if that is even possible considering the state it is in right now.

No, I didn't post no recovery nfo, just aiming for initial diagnostics. I could let you fend for yourself but you said you were kinda new to this Gnooh-lunix thing, so.


I'd use any bootable Linux installer or Live CD as 'dd' is enough: boot, mount your portable USB or Firewire storage disk then make a copy of the source disk (no need to mount it) to a file on the mounted external disk. Of course extracting the source disk and adding it to a working machine will work too but you should take care there'll be no automounting or "fixing" of problems because you don't know yet if that will make things worse.


Depends on the scenario and if you successfully made a backup. If you did and if the partitions are easily recoverable then there's no need to build another machine. OTOH in a worst case scenario where you need to recover data you will want to add portable storage to save results to. Trying to save recovered data to the same physical disk is lethal.

unSpawn, that sir, indeed, I absolutely know and understand, you can't recover files and write them to the source drive. That would be absurd.

I'm just not sure how a disk with its partitions showing as 'unallocated' space can be backed up.
Most software that's used for backups won't see the drive as useable.
I would think it would need a mode to do a sector by sector RAW disk copy. Is that what dd does?

Yes.