Retrieving data from crippled hard drive[Solved]

shade266 · Guru Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Internal

Problem hard drive:
40 GB Seagate Barracuda

title=Tux's World
root (hd0,1)
kernel (hd0,1)/bzImage 2.6.5-gentoo-r1 root=/dev/hda4

title=XP
rootnoverify (hd0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

Current fully operational hard drive:
120GB Samsung SpinPoint

title=Tux's World
root (hd0,1)
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz-2.6.9-gentoo-r9 root=/dev/hda4

title=XP
rootnoverify (hd0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

on the seagate hdd i have a failed filesystem which won't allow me to boot gentoo. There is data i need to retrieve prior to attempting a repair or having to reinstall.

I have created mount points to gain entry to the hdd partitions which contain the data. I am still unable to retrieve the data from the user account. [/code]
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:34 pm Post subject:

shade266,

Get the SMART Tools to read the drives embedded defect logs.
If you can't mount any of its partitions, try to copy them to files with the dd command. You can then attempt to mouont the files as if ther were partitions with the -o loop option to mount. You need loop support available to the kernel.
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

shade266 · Guru Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Internal

Sounds like a plan. I have found the SMART tools and before utilize the tools i should mention that i can mount

tryn · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 4:01 am Post subject:

Have you gave Knoppix a thought. I just checked my computer with it and can see all of my partitions including the grub files for my boot. If needed you could copy files or edit files from Knoppix. At least I have done that before.

shade266 · Guru Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Internal

tryn, thanks for the response.. i have not utilized knoppix before this. If i do use knoppix where would I save the copied files to? I have roughly 500 files i need copied to my current hdd i am using before i attempt to salvage my gentoo partitions on the other damaged drive.
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shade266 · Guru Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Internal

tryn.. nm on the question regarding where to save the files to. I see knoppix has the ability to save data to the bootable disk itself. I am finishing up with NeddySeagoon suggested and will follow up with a data verification in the morning. If i have some corrupt files I will implement the knoppix option. thanks again.
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shade266 · Guru Joined: 29 Oct 2003 Posts: 593 Location: Internal

ok.. i lied.. i was not going to sleep without running the data verification. Every single file has been kept intact. I used smartmontools (available through portage), and got a log to review any errors. to my surprise there were no errors and further research reveals my /boot filesystem is not corrupt but is missing the /etc directory... this happened before and I had to copy over a directory from the livecd and manually edit every config file i needed to boot into the correct runlevel and profile.

Anyhow, everything has worked out and again it can only be blamed on me. Thanks for the suggestions and tips.
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