Recovering files from ext2/3

[jd1008]

On 09/18/2014 07:01 PM, Robert Nichols wrote:
> 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.
>
I ran mkfs.ext3 -S  /dev/sdc7
then ran fsck.ext3 -y /dev/sdc7
it blew away EVERYTHING :)

Back to square one and re-dd original to test drive
and start over.