Recovering files from ext2/3

[Robert Nichols]

On 09/18/2014 12:37 PM, jd1008 wrote:
> Is there any other tool that can extract files from a partition that
> seems to have corrupted superblocks?
> I tried dumpe2fs, and fsck -b <blockNumber>
> to no avail. Tried all available block numbers that are listed
> when original mkfs was done, and it's output was saved.
>
> None of the blocks seem to work - all of them have invalid magic.

Verify that the partition table still appears to be correct.  If it
is pointing to the wrong starting location, none of the super blocks
will appear in the expected places. You might see if /testdisk/ can
find any intact super blocks.

Consider using a hex editor to look at some of the super blocks.
They should contain the same data.  The data that actually appears
there might give some clue as to what happened.

As a last ditch recovery effort, run mke2fs/mke3fs with the "-S"
option to initialize the super blocks and group descriptors only.
Do this only with (or on) a backup copy of the partition, since
it is potentially destructive.  Then see if /debugfs/ can make
sense of the filesystem, and if so, run /fsck/ with the "-f"
option to repair the metadata.

-- 
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                 Do NOT delete it.