Reading ext3 file system on Mac and overriding file permission
 

Hi guys.
My laptop with Ubuntu 11.04 installed on it crashed due to a lightning striking. However, my hard disk with all my PhD work is safe now.
After this, I bought a new MacBook Pro (that now I regret). I want to mount my ext3 old hard disk on mac, but mac does not distinguish the disk. Do you have any suggestion to force it mount this drive on terminal?
Once I'm done with mounting the drive, then I want to override my old file permissions and backup my files on this hard disk.
Any help or hint is highly appreciated.
Best wishes.
Ehsan.

There are some projects based on FUSE like ext2fsx. Just search for “fuse mac ext2” and alike.

Another approach: install any Linux in a virtual machine, at least VirtualBox is free while there is Parallels Desktop too. Then mount the USB device only inside the virtual machine and copy it either into the virtual machine’s disk image or the native Mac disk.

If you have no other backup of your PhD work: do all on your own risk.

overriding Linux file permission
 

Thanks Reuti,
I started to follow your suggestion on VirtualBox. Let's see what happens.
Fortunately, I have backup of all my PhD work. However, there are other crucial documents that I did not backup regularly.

The point is that, with a Linux machine, I can easily mount my hard disk, and see the folder contents. However, the problem is that I cannot override the file permission and see the file contents, or copy them to another space. The reason is that when I mount it with another machine, the file ownerships cannot be changed. This, I can say, is my major problem to tackle.

Best wishes.
Ehsan.

Well, this looks like a severe issue then. Using a virtual machine won’t give you more options than connecting it to a real Linux machine. I thought you have no other machine and no option to access an ext2 file system at all.

Changing the ownership shouldn’t be necessary when you access it from another machine as the root user. So it might be necessary to try to repair the file system (you can check beforehand without changing anything) by fsck.

The permissions of all files are ---------- right now?

Thanks Reuti.
I followed your instruction. I installed a fresh Ubuntu 10.10 with VirtualBox, and yet the drive is not being mount.
The reason, to my knowledge, is that my hard disk is connected through my Mac. The Mac is intervening and blocking reading of the files.
So, I cannot even see my drive with VB.

I had an idea:
I exactly know how I partitioned my hard disk. So, I can connect it to another Linux machine, reboot, and try to install a fresh Linux on this hard disk while it is connected by USB to another machine. i will use the same user/pass as I had on my old laptop. Then user permission would look the same.

Do you believe this may work?
Best wishes.
Ehsan.

VB will only allow one OS to access the disk at a time. Do you see other USB devices properly inside the VB?

What do you mean by writing the partition table again - you don't see anything on the disk even when connected to another Linux machine?