From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Masover Subject: Re: recovering from "rm -rf" Date: Fri, 05 Aug 2005 16:39:39 -0500 Message-ID: <42F3DC9B.3010303@slaphack.com> References: <42F3A08A.30102@planet.nl> <42F3A16D.6090306@namesys.com> <42F3C73B.9040808@slaphack.com> <42F3D760.7090008@slaphack.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com In-Reply-To: List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: michael chang Cc: reiserfs-list@namesys.com michael chang wrote: > On 8/5/05, David Masover wrote: > >>michael chang wrote: >> >>>On 8/5/05, David Masover wrote: >>> >>> >>>>I've got a Reiser4 partition which I just moved (mv) a bunch of stuff >>>>off of, onto another drive. The other drive died immediately after. >>>> >>>>I'm trying to repair the other drive, and to find any backups, but is >>>>there a reasonable chance to recover from the good drive? Maybe force >>>>fsck.reiser4 to rebuild stuff... somehow? It's sort of the equivalent >>>>of an "rm -rf". >>> >>> >>>I have no idea what you're trying to say; can you identify your drives >>>by e.g. Drive A and Drive B? However, I've heard that Spinrite >>>(grc.com) is known to be pretty good at drive recovery, and supposedly >>>compatable with Linux partitions. Requires an i386 compatable >>>machine, and I believe you need Windows to write the diskette/iso >>>which you can boot the recovery system from. Haven't tried it though. >> >>I could do that, but this is Reiser4. Does anyone but Namesys support >>recovery from Reiser4 yet? > > > No clue. They'll be able to tell you, for $25, from what I've heard. I meant more along the lines of sending in Drive B to somewhere. The standard procedure is to pull apart the drive and replace as much as they need to to create an image, then start working on the image in a fairly low-level fashion that's highly FS-dependant. I'm figuring that if repair on Drive A fails, I'll have one of these guys send me the raw image of Drive B, which I'll then try to repair with fsck and such if I have to, and that's where Namesys would be a possibility. Of course, I still haven't given up on Drive A. > Well, most filesystems [I don't know for sure about Reiser4] will not > immediately clear out unused data. However, if Drive A has been > running for a while post "rm -rf" and has some sort of repacker > enabled (I think they haven't implemented it yet or it was removed in > recent versionf of Reiser4) then the data could be all gone. > Otherwise, I suppose if you had a backup of the metadata [which you > probably don't], you could try recovering from that... No, I don't. And, Drive A wasn't running for nearly long enough, even if the repacker was implemented -- I think it's supposed to run something like once a week. > As a note for the Power Plug + Sparks -- in the future, if it falls > out, unplug BOTH ends of the cord, then plug in the end that is > connected to the device FIRST, then the power socket/source SECOND. > This goes for _ALL_ electronic devices, and will save you a lot of > hassle. Paranoid people will also unplug electronics during a > thunderstorm/rolling blackouts/brownouts, and get a UPS system. No, what I should have done was pull the main power cable *immediately*, then plugged everything back in with power off. I'm talking about the power cable that leads to the drive -- the four-pin molex connector -- not the big, usually black cable that leads to the box. >>>anyways, so you shouldn't use it). For all you know, the drive could >>>have died because the internals wore out/broke, or because your cable >>>died/broke/etc. >> >>I'm guessing that the internals did break, so I think that a recovery >>service would probably be able to recover 100% of my data (as an image), >>but only after replacing some parts, or even pulling the whole thing >>apart in a cleanroom. This would cost at least $300-500, and if it goes >>to the cleanroom, probably $700 and up. > > > Considering the situation, most likely you shocked (e.g. with static > electricity or from that AC) the motor and head and whatnot, although > if you're lucky, the spindle containing your data will be untouched. > In that case, a data recovery center only has to take it apart, move > the spindle to an identical drive, and put it back in the machine > (hopefully, without shocking it a second time). As for drive A, you > can ask if there is some hack to get an older version of the metadata. > *shrugs* I'm counting on some combination of that and of a grep on the raw device. And so help me, I'm not writing a single byte more onto the drive until I'm sure there's nothing left to recover. >>By the way, do you know any good data recovery services? > > > Not that I've used. What area [e.g. country, metro area, etc.] I was assuming I'd have to ship it. I'm in a small town in Iowa.