Hi for all folks...

The was an ext3 filesystem on disk with a database.. no backup..
Then it was overwrited by an RHEL installation..
Its an 1 tera disk, and the RHEL installation takes about 3G.. Before the format there was about 100Gbs of data that I need to recover...

I'm searching for recovery tools, I'm trying TestDisk and Photorec..
I will try lde too.. There other alternatives???

Also... I hope I can search for ext3 superblocks from previous fs.. How can I differentiate the new superblocks from old ones??? Is that possible?

I'm searching for "how ext3 filesystem works" knowledge to dig in inode tables, superblocks and datablocks and search for my data, or something like, if tools don't help.. So any ext3 troubleshooting stuff is welcome

So there is two strategies..
- One working with tools
- And other digging on ext3 filesystem

There is an dd image being created right now.. I hope I can work on this image and let the disc intact.. The disc is already a mess and I don't want it to get wrose

Cheers and Thanks in advance!

Hilst,

Erk. I don't like your chances. There is no substitute for backups.

File scrapers (like photorec) go through the disk looking for file signatures - that will be mighty difficult for a database. When you installed RHEL presumably it did a mkfs on the filesystem - which splats all the metadata. At that point it might (might, not would) have been possible to recover the filesystem (and data).
Once a few Gig of (new) files have overwritten the old meta-data, I think it's a lost cause.

A "dd" image" to work on is an excellent decision, but I think you'll need some luck.

Thanks for reply I'm surelly needing lucky here :-)

I'm running photorec on dd image right now... searching for dump files...

Cheers

So, TestDisc, and PhotoRec don't help.. I will try to lde, search for inodes... or something..