LInux server recovery

vap16oct1984 · 06-22-2009, 03:35 AM

Hi all,
I am Mr VAP and working as linux admin.I have have faced a real critacal situation in one of our client side.proble is like
you have deleted everyting from /, you have no recovery backup or backup tape of ur system.Without using new instalation and without formatting i have to recover my linux server. I have tried rescue mode but its use less and not working. Pls any one give me some suggestion or help how could i recover?

JulianTosh · 06-22-2009, 04:11 AM

You're going to have to rebuild the box, but first, you will be able to recover at least some of your documents by using 'scalpel'. I've recovered a lot of data from damaged/deleted partitions by booting to the "Recovery Is Possible" distro and running scalpel to slice out known/recognized file types from the harddisk.

kirukan · 06-22-2009, 06:04 AM

How we can use no extension option on scalpel.conf actually i have accidentally deleted vmware virtual disk (vmdk). sorry to use this thread because i have already opened similar thread
I think scalpel and foremost are similar.

Quote:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...system-734319/

#foremost -v -T -i /dev/cciss/c0d0p13 -c /etc/foremost.conf
I have used above mentioned way but still no luck to recover my virtual disk but it has recoverd some other stuffs (pdf, doc, jpg, avi files). Please anybody help.

Thanks

JulianTosh · 06-22-2009, 06:13 AM

From what I recall reading, scalpel is a newer version/fork/rewrite of foremost.

Neither will recover a partition, they are intended to read a drive's byte stream and look for identifying fingerprints of known file types and use knowledge of those file types and structures to extract the documents.

I do remember a tool (but not it's name) on the Recovery Is Possible distro that attempted to rebuild a partition but I didnt have any luck with it in my particular situation.

vap16oct1984 · 06-23-2009, 04:59 AM

Hi Gentleman,
PLs tell me how can i use scalpel software as its not installed on my server. As u know now its condition is like its not booting and rescue mode is also not working.
So I dont think Scalpel is goona help me.

Anyways Thanks for Help. I hope i got some solution.

JulianTosh · 06-23-2009, 05:34 AM

you would have to boot from a live cd and run scapel from there.

You can get "Recovery Is Possible" from here:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/recoveryispossible/

Once you burn the ISO, boot the system from that CD and run 'man scapel' to learn the options.

archtoad6 · 07-26-2009, 09:48 PM

I posted some links here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...88#post3621188