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

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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Milano, Italy
    Beans
    871
    Distro
    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
    Beans
    1

    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
    May 2010
    Location
    uk
    Beans
    9,249
    Distro
    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
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Beans
    4

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

    Thank you!!! You really saved me.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2004
    Location
    Auckland
    Beans
    38
    Distro
    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
    Jan 2011
    Beans
    33

    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
    Jul 2008
    Beans
    7

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

    Two words for you:


    *** THANK ***

    *** YOU ***

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Sep 2012
    Beans
    1

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

    Quote Originally Posted by dentaku65 View Post
    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.
    Hidentaku65,

    Thanks a lot .. the following command worked for me..\

    sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

    Regards

    Pankaj C

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Beans
    93
    Distro
    Ubuntu

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

    Thanks for great tutorial

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