Recovering files from ext2/3

[jd1008]

On 09/20/2014 09:41 PM, Robert Nichols wrote:
> On 09/20/2014 08:30 PM, jd1008 wrote:
>> / posted it to the ext3 maling list (turns out they also know ext4)
>> and they admitted about undocumented effects of using the -S
>> option, and that one must NEVER use it unless they know the intrinsics
>> of the FS so well, that the user knows exactly what effects it will
>> have.
>
> Sounds like a pretty useless option, then, and that sort of exchange is
> exactly the sort of thing I don't want to get involved in.
>
> Digging down into my hack stack, the next thing I would try is to make
> a sparse file of exactly the same size as your partition (you can use
> the /truncate/ command to do that), then run /mkfs.ext3/ on that file
> and copy the resulting super block, which is the 2nd 1K block in the
> file, to your broken filesystem.  Then you could see whether /debugfs/
> can make any sense of that filesystem and what /fsck/ might try to do
> to restore it.  The first time through, just answer "n" to anything
> /fsck/ wants to fix and just get a feeling for the extent of the damage.
>
Good suggestion!!
I will try it and report back.

JD