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Thread: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (testing)

    HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    Two days ago "someone" took out brutally (but without intention) the power supply of my box; when I reboot the machine I've got this message just after the Grub was loaded:
    Code:
    No init found. Try passing init= boot arg
    BusyBox v1.10.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.10.2.2ubuntu7) built-in shell (ash)
    Mmm, I've never seen this, but I quickly understood that my box was seriously damaged, the access to my data was impossible; user in panic

    After two days of trying to fix the issue I've been able to get back my disk intact; I know, I'm a pretty lucky folk.

    First to all this "guide" worked for me and for my case; for what I've understood the problem was regarding something about EXT4 filesystem that was locking the access to the disk due to the unexpected shutdown (of course); Grub was ok, hardware disk was ok; I'm not so deep involved in the knowledge of the filesystem stuff, but I had the high suspect that the inode structure was denying the system to be mounted/accessed for some pending operations.

    At this moment I've created a USB key with the live of Ubuntu Rescue Remix http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/ and I booted the machine with this distro.

    As a first step I've just list my partitions (sda in my case it's the only drive):
    Code:
    sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
    
    Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x000619b6
    
       Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
    /dev/sda1   *           1       29844   239721898+  83  Linux
    /dev/sda2           29845       30401     4474102+   5  Extended
    /dev/sda5           29845       30401     4474071   82  Linux swap / Solaris
    The damaged partition, in my case, was /dev/sda1.
    Now I've tried to do an fsck:
    Code:
    sudo fsck -yv /dev/sda1
    but
    Code:
    fsck: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sda1
    Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program?
    What? The disk was obviously not mounted (although I did an umount); no way, I was not able to do an fsck on that partition.

    I've tried everything:
    • Create an image with dd and mount the image after an fsck (the image was unusable due to an arror in the filesystem)
    • Back-up the partition with PhotoRec (the files saved were really trivial)
    • Mount the disk as slave (the Ubuntu Rescue freezed trying to mount it)

    I've was almost to give up and prepare myself to format the disk, when I came across this technical document (for EXT3)
    http://planet.admon.org/using-altern...to-check-ext3/
    So I decided to try it as last resource (remove the first inode), based on consideration that all my data was already lost.
    Code:
    sudo debugfs -w /dev/sda1
    debugfs 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
    debugfs:  clri <8>
    debugfs:  quit
    Then I've launch fsck:
    Code:
    sudo fsck -yv /dev/sda1
    but
    Code:
    fsck: Device or resource busy while trying to open /dev/sda1
    Filesystem mounted or opened exclusively by another program?
    Damn! No way; but I was thinking that maybe a reboot (*) was needed.
    (*) to reboot with Ubuntu Rescue I've used ALT+PrnScreen+r+e+i+s+u+b instead of normal reboot because the normal reboot was not working

    Then I've launch fsck again:
    Code:
    sudo fsck -yv /dev/sda1
    and now this time worked!
    Fsck fix the filesystem errors; I've had not need to do a tune2fs as stated in the document reported above for the re-creation of the journalized filesystem.

    Rebooted the machine with my disk and everything is all there.
    Happy user.
    ------------------------------------------------
    yep ”short and long URL„
    http://yep.it/
    ------------------------------------------------

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
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    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    I cant thank you enough for this, you just saved me from wiping and reloading!

  3. #3
    Join Date
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    Xubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr

    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    Hi

    Code:
    sudo debugfs -w /dev/sda1
    debugfs 1.41.11 (14-Mar-2010)
    debugfs:  clri <8>
    debugfs:  quit
    Clearing the journal inode. Must remember that one Nicely done.

    Kind regards
    If you believe everything you read, you better not read. ~ Japanese Proverb

    If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed. - Mark Twain

    Thinking about becoming an Ubuntu Member?

  4. #4
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    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    Thank you!!! You really saved me.

  5. #5
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    Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat

    Talking Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    excellent !!

    thanks so much. saved me hours of time to fix my sisters laptop. much much appreciated.
    Mac users swear by their Mac, Windows users swear at their PC, Linux users swear at Windows users

  6. #6
    Join Date
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    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    You sir are a gentleman and a scholar. If you every need a pizza when you are in Philly shoot me a message.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    This was great. Saved so much of time and stress that I was getting into. Unfortunately, it didn't come through google as the top solution but got through one of the links in another thread.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
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    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    ok so the same thing happened to me

    when i do fdisk -l /dev/sda i get
    /dev/sda1 boot system
    * NTFS
    warning: partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary

    same for /dev/sda2 , /dev/sda5 , /dev/sda6

    so when i try
    sudo fsck -yv /dev/sda1
    i get fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
    fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for dev/sda1

    so i am pretty over my head at present and would like to recover the items

  9. #9
    Join Date
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    Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope (testing)

    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    Hi,
    this guide it is for EXT4 filesystem where the first inode lock the access to the disk; be careful with the commands in this guide with a different filesystem (NTFS).

    Afaik for NTFS there is a suite called ntfsprogs that should be included in Ubuntu Remix for helping your situation (type ntfs+tab on terminal for the command list below, in red maybe two useful commands for your situation, see always man pages):
    Code:
    ntfs-3g
    ntfs-3g.usermap
    ntfscluster
    ntfsfix 
    ntfsls
    ntfsundelete
    ntfs-3g.probe
    ntfscat
    ntfscmp
    ntfsinfo
    ntfsmount         
    ntfs-3g.secaudit
    ntfsclone
    ntfscp
    ntfslabel
    ntfsresize
    Again, this guide it is for EXT4 issue only with a "fix" derived from EXT3 (as documented).

    Good luck

    Quote Originally Posted by anto01 View Post
    ok so the same thing happened to me

    when i do fdisk -l /dev/sda i get
    /dev/sda1 boot system
    * NTFS
    warning: partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary

    same for /dev/sda2 , /dev/sda5 , /dev/sda6

    so when i try
    sudo fsck -yv /dev/sda1
    i get fsck: fsck.ntfs: not found
    fsck: error 2 while executing fsck.ntfs for dev/sda1

    so i am pretty over my head at present and would like to recover the items
    ------------------------------------------------
    yep ”short and long URL„
    http://yep.it/
    ------------------------------------------------

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
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    Re: HOWTO: recover lost partition after unexpected shutdown (Lucid)

    Thank you so much, was searching for a solution for about a week now and this finally solved it.

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