How to Recover Linux Data After Hard Drive Crash?

Is your Linux hard drive crashing abruptly every time when you boot your system? Are you unable to boot your Linux computer and access data from it? Well, the problem may occur due to numerous reasons, which cause hard drive crash. Most commonly, this problem occurs due missing or corrupt data structures of your Linux hard drive. Due to the same, operating system can not locate stored files on the hard drive and access them. At this point, you need to opt for Linux data recovery solutions to get your valuable data recovered.

Crash of a Linux hard drive is indicated by various symptoms. Such symptoms include the following ones:

Your Linux operating system-based computer does not boot up.

You encounter various error messages, such as “No Fixed Disk Present” or “DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER”

Black or blank screen after you power up your system.

System reboots, freezes, or stops responding frequently.

“Operating system not found” and “Drive not formatted” messages.

Hard drive crash can be caused by various reasons and renders entire system inaccessible. The most common reasons of Linux hard drive crash are as given below:

Boot sector virus or damaged MBR (Master Boot Record).

Corrupted or damaged file system of Linux hard drive.

Missing or damaged system files or operating system.

Virus infection.

Corrupt Superblock or other critical meta data structures.

When system crash occurs, it becomes impossible for the operating system to locate files on hard drive. If it can not locate and access the files, which are required by Linux operating system to boot up, the boot process fails.

In order to fix a crashed Linux hard drive and perform Data Recovery Linux, you are required to format it and reinstall operating system. This process replaces all the missing, corrupt, or damaged system resources and bring the hard drive back to life. However, it also removes all the data from hard drive and create needs of Linux recovery.

Recovery is best possible using advanced and efficient commercial software, known as linux recovery software. They use high-end scanning techniques to carry out in-depth scan of entire Linux hard drive to extract all lost data from it.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is an easy to use and read-only utility that recovers your valuable data in all data loss situations. The software works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system, including SUSE, Red Hat, Debian, and Ubuntu. It recovers lost data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system partitions.

Interrupted Logical Volume Extending Process Causes Data Loss in Linux

LVM (Logical Volume Manager) is a part of Linux operating system kernel, which manages hard drives and other mass storage devices. It is a way of allocating disk space into various logical volumes, which can easily be resized or extended instead of hard drive partitions. You can not place Linux /boot/ partition on logical volume group as it is not readable by the Linux boot loader.

You can easily extend a logical volume, using lvextend utility. It also supports extension of the snapshot logical volumes. Before you proceed for extending a Linux logical volume, you must first create an absolute backup of entire volume. In case the logical volume extending process gets interrupted or halted, you may lose access to logical volumes and encounter data loss. At this point, you have to opt for Linux data recovery software to get your valuable data back.

The lvextend command-line utility, offers you the following options to perform a series of operations on your logical volume-

-l, –extents [+]LogicalExtentsNumber[%{VG|LV|FREE}]: It sets or extends the size of logical volume in units of the logical extents. With + sign, value is contributed to actual size of volume and without this, value is accepted as absolute one.

-L, –size [+]LogicalVolumeSize[kKmMgGtTpPeE]: Sets or extends size of logical volumes in the units of MB. The size postfix of M for MB (Megabytes), G for GB (Gigabytes), T for TB (Terabytes), P for PB (Petabytes), or E for EB (Exabytes) is elective.

-i, –stripes Stripes: Provides number of the stripes for extension. This option is not usable with the logical volumes, which use original metadata logical volume manager format that must use single value throughout.

-I, –stripesize StripeSize: Provides number of the kilobytes for granularity of stripes. It does not work on logical volumes, which use original metadata logical volume manager format that must use single value throughout.

All the above options are very useful in modifying a logical volume. However, serious problems occur if the process is interrupted due to any reasons, such as system crash, power outages, improper system shutdown, and user error. In such cases, the volume can not be accessed and you encounter severe data loss, which require Linux recovery to be fixed.

Data Recovery Linux is best possible using advanced and efficient Linux data recovery software. They recover lost data safely and easily in all data loss scenarios.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a read-only and easy-to-use utility that ensures absolute recovery of lost Linux data. The software works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system, including Red Hat, Mandriva, SUSE, and Fedora. It recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT 12 file system volumes.

Resizing Mounted Ext2 File System May Cause Corruption

The Ext2 (second extended) file system is an advanced file system for Linux kernel. It is a replacement of Ext file system. It is possible to resize the Ext2 file system, while it is mounted and system is using it. This is possible using the ext2online utility. The process of resizing the file system while applications have open files, and writing data to file system, is OK. However, you should always have a complete and valid backup of your mission critical data before mounting an online or mounted file system. In case anything goes wrong, you may encounter serious data loss situations, which requires Linux data recovery to be fixed.

You can resize only the mounted Ext2 file system. In order to use the ext2online utility, you must have Online ext2 resize support (CONFIG_EXT2_RESIZE) option enabled in your Linux Kernel. You can enable this feature after applying appropriate patch for 2.x kernel series.

The file system, which is specified by the device, or the mountpoint must be mounted currently. By default, the mounted file system is enlarged to fill up the device. If you have specified an optional size parameter, then it uses the specified size instead. If optional modifier is not available, it is taken from Ext2 file system blocks.

The ext2online utility doesn’t modify size of actual storage device. It changes the file system only. When you want to enlarge file system, you should expand underlying storage device first. You can do it online for the logical volumes, using the lvextend tool that combines file system resizing and LV extensions.

The original architecture or design of Ext2 file system doesn’t provide online resizing option. There are some limitations to the amount of resizing, that you can do while your file system is mounted. Without any preparation, you can resize Ext2 file system to next 256 MB range for 1 KB file system, 2 GB for 2 KB file system, and 16 GB for 4 KB file system.

You should always keep in mind that resizing the mounted file system is integrally risky and causes file system corruption. At this point, Linux data recovery becomes essential.

Linux recovery is best possible using advanced and powerful third-party applications, known as Ext2 Recovery software. With interactive graphical user interface and read-only conduct, they are totally safe and easy to use in all data loss situations.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery software ensures absolute recovery of lost Linux data using high-end scanning techniques. The software recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes. It works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system, including Red Hat, SUSE, Mandriva, Fedora, and Ubuntu.

Superblock Corruption Makes Linux Volume Unmountable

Like other computer operating systems, Linux also comprise of various components, which include Superblock. Superblock is a significant metadata of Linux operating system, which describes file system on the Linux hard drive. The system components have interdependency and work together to keep your system functional. However, if any of these system components or data structures gets damaged, the system may not work properly and you can not access stored data from the hard drive. This behavior leads to critical data loss situations and require Linux Data Recovery to be fixed.

Under some situations, you can not mount your Linux file system and the data stored on the Linux hard drive volumes can not be accessed. Most of the problem occurs in a dual-boot system. When you try repairing your Linux file system on the root partition, process could not complete successfully. It renders your entire system inaccessible.

When you run fsck utility on the affected Linux hard drive, without ‘L’ option, you may come across the below error message:

“Leonzwei root # xfs_repair -nLv /dev/hdc3
Phase 1 - find and verify super block…
Bad primary super block - bad magic number!!!

Attempting to find secondary super block…

Found candidate secondary super block…
error reading super block 54 — seek to offset 57982058496 failed
unable to verify super block, continuing”

The repair process is interrupted after the above error message. In such cases, you need to identify the cause of this behavior and then perform Data Recovery Linux by resolving it.

Grounds of the problem

This behavior takes place because of corruption to the Linux Superblock. File system can not mount after Superblock corruption and thus your system can not boot up. Corruption may occur due to numerous reasons, such as virus infection, improper system shutdown, user errors, and more.

Solution

You can sort out this problem by replacing the damaged Superblock with its identical copy, which is maintained by Linux operating system to prevent such problems. However, if it is not possible, hard drive formatting is the only way to go. It actually removes all the data from hard drive and causes severe data loss. At this point, you need to use Linux Recovery applications to get your mission critical data back. The applications are particularly designed to methodically scan entire hard drive and extract all lost data from it, ensure absolute Linux Data Recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most advanced and effective utility to ensure perfect recovery in all data loss situations. The software works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system, including Red Hat, SUSE, Fedora, and Debian. It Recover Linux from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes.

Recovering Linux system after using fsck on a mounted system

Are you finding difficulties in mounting your Linux system drive? The problem could be due to corruption in the file system. To address such issues, Linux provides fsck utility. It is a command-line utility, which checks integrity and consistency of the Linux file system. In addition, it finds errors and fixes them, if possible. However, if you run this utility on a mounted file system, then you may not be able to access the data at all. In such cases, you should use a third-party Linux recovery software to perform data recovery for Linux system.

Consider a scenario wherein you have accidentally run fsck on a mounted Linux file system. The inode root gets damaged and all inodes start calling similar blocks. When you try to mount the volume after fsck, the following error message is displayed:

“Mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error. In some cases useful info is found in syslog — try dmesg | tail or so”

When you run \dmesg\, as suggested in the error message, another error message may be displayed, that is:

“ext3-fs: corrupt root inode, run e2fsck”

And when you run e2fsck, yet another error message is displayed, that is:

“Root inode is not a directory. Clear?”

If you press ‘Y’ and proceed with the process, the parent entry of each inode from the root directory will be deleted. The root inode will attempt to recover but if it fails, another error message will be displayed, that is:

“Cannot Allocate Root Inode”

After this error message, you will not be able to access your system.

Cause:

This behavior is caused due to corruption of the file system, superblock, root inode, or any other Linux data structure. Because of this, the operating system cannot locate the hard drive volumes.

Resolution:

To sort out this problem and perform Linux recovery, you should reformat the hard disk and reinstall the Linux operating system. However, that would invariably mean that your valuable data will be lost. In such cases, you should use a third-party Linux data recovery to recover lost data. Such tools are able to recover lost data safely by using fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a Linux recovery tool that enables you to recover lost data from all instances of data loss. It is able to perform ext2 recovery, ext3 recovery, and ext4 recovery. In addition, it can recover FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 file systems as well. This software is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.

Recovering a Red Hat Linux system after a power outage

Today, the Linux operating system has carved a niche of its own. It has got a dedicated category of users who will happily pay for it if it ever comes with a price tag. The Linux system is secure, reliable, fast, and does not require hardware/software drivers to install them on the system. Having said that, even such a robust operating system can face corruption. Corruption can occur due to various reasons such as power outages, corrupt file system, human errors, damaged operating system, etc.

In such cases, you should try performing appropriate corrective measures to sort out the issue. However, if you are unable to do so then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to perform Linux recovery.

Consider a scenario wherein you are working on a Red Hat Linux system. Suddenly, there is a power outage and the system shuts down unexpectedly. When you try to switch on the system, you fail to do so.

Cause:

The cause of this situation is that the Linux system has corrupted because of power outage.

Resolution:

If the problem is because of having a faulty hardware like bad hard drive or memory chip, the file system check may not be sufficient to resolve this problem. This happens particularly when the file system is corrupted. In such cases, the Red Hat boot process will produce an error message and guide you into a shell so that you can perform the file system repair yourself.

When the recovery shell dismounts all the file systems to mount the root file system in a read-only mode, you can perform full file system checks on it. To do this, you should run the e2fsck utility on the corrupted file system that will be able to resolve all the inconsistencies. Exit the shell and restart the system. The system will function normally now.

However, if you still are unable to recover the system then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to do the needful. Such read-only tools are able to recover the data safely without overwriting the existing data.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a Linux recovery software that enables you to recover data from the corrupted Linux systems. It is supported by various Linux distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Caldera, Mandrake, Sorcerer, TurboLinux, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. This Linux data recovery software is able to perform ext2 recovery, ext3 recovery, and ext4 recovery. In addition, it can recover data from FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 file systems as well. This Linux recovery software is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.

A Layman’s Guide to Recover Lost Data in Linux

Data loss is a terrible situation, which may occur to any system, irrespective of the operating system and hardware platform. Sometimes, you may find that your Linux computer does not boot properly or you can not find stored data on your Linux hard drive. This behavior leads to data loss. Data loss occurs due to numerous reasons, related to system errors and user errors.

In such situations, a complete backup of your significant data proves to be of great help. However, if the backup is either not available or not updated, you have to opt for Linux Data Recovery solutions to get your precious data recovered.

Your precious data from Linux hard drive may get lost because of a number of reasons, which include:

• Accidental deletion of important data files or unintentional hard drive formatting.

• Virus has infected your system and damaged its significant data structures.

• File system is corrupted due to virus attack or improper system shutdown.

• Operating system has malfunctioned.

The list of data loss reasons can be very long. When you face data loss due to any reason, the very first thing that you need to take into consideration, is to find out an appropriate solution. Below are some common Linux Recovery solutions, which can be used even by a layman to retrieve lost data:

• Restore data from backup- A backup is a copy of your original data on Linux hard drive, which can be used to restore data in case of data loss.

• Use Ext3grep utility- Is an inbuilt utility of Linux operating system that helps you recover deleted files from Ext3 file system volume.

• Use Extundelete tool- It helps you retrieve lost files from Ext4 and Ext3 file system volumes of Linux hard drive.

• Use third-party Ext4 Recovery software- These are advanced and powerful applications, which methodically scan entire hard drive and extract as much data as possible from it.

These applications perform absolute and effective Data Recovery Linux in all cases of data loss. They come equipped with interactive and simple graphical user interface to ensure easy recovery in all data loss situations. With read-only and non-destructive conduct, the software are totally safe to use.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery software recovers lost, deleted, missing, and inaccessible data from all types of storage devices. It can be used with all major distributions of Linux operating systems, including SUSE, Debian, Red Hat, Fedora, and more. The software supports recovery from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes.

Recovering Lost Data from ext2 Linux File System

The Linux system is an open sourced operating system that is used by people all over the world. Unlike Windows and Apple operating systems, it is not a sole proprietary of a single organization. In fact, over 1,000 developers from at least 100 different companies have contributed to its each update. On a lighter note, it is created by the people, for the people, and of the people a la democracy. The most notable thing about Linux is that it can be used absolutely anywhere, from wristwatches to supercomputers.

However, Linux systems too can get corrupted. Corruption can occur due to various reasons such as human errors, virus infections, abrupt system shutdown, damaged file system, faulty hardware components, etc. To resolve this issue, you should take appropriate corrective measures. However, if you are unable to do so then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to perform data recovery of Linux system.

Consider a scenario wherein you are not able to boot your Linux-based system having ext2 file system.

Cause:

It may be possible that the file system of your Linux system has corrupted and, thus, has become inaccessible. There could be following reasons for this behavior:

• Virus infections

• Bad sectors

• Corruption in the Inode table, group descriptor, or super block

Resolution:

To resolve this error message, you should perform either of the following methods:

• Use the e2fsck command to check for errors in file system and repair damaged Linux file system.

• If e2fsck is not able to resolve the issue, then format the system and reinstall Linux.

Formatting the system and reinstalling Linux would solve the problem. But then, you would lose all the valuable data. In such cases, you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to perform Linux recovery. Such read-only tools perform Linux recovery using fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms. These tools have a highly interactive user interface that enables you to perform Ext2 Recovery very easily.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a Linux data recovery tool that enables you to perform Linux recovery for lost, corrupted, or formatted file systems. The software is able to recover data from ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 file system volumes. It is supported by various Linux distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Caldera, Mandrake, Sorcerer, TurboLinux, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. This tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.

Recovering File System in Linux 4

The Linux system is one of the most used operating systems in the world. It is an open source operating system that is much more secure than other operating systems. It is also very economical as it can be set up even with obsolete hardware components such as i386 or i486 processor. The Linux system also provides you the freedom to administer your system by taking care of the look & feel and also the applications that need to be installed, etc.

However, at times the Linux system gets corrupted because of various reasons such as corrupt file system, power surges, human errors, virus infections, etc. In such cases, you should take appropriate measures to overcome this issue. However, if you are unable to do so then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to perform Linux recovery.

Consider a scenario wherein you have a Linux 4 system, which you have restarted. But the system fails to boot and an error message is displayed, that is:

“ext2fs partition type 0×83. …. ext3-fs: journal inode is deleted…. mount: error 22 mounting ext3 error 2 mounting name switchroot: mountfailed:22 umount/initrd/dev failed:2 kernal panic - not syncing”

Cause:
The most possible cause of this error message is that the hard disk has crashed. Some bad blocks must have occurred in the inode table making the file system unrecoverable.

Resolution:
To resolve this issue, you should try the following methods:

• Boot the system from the disaster recovery boot media or installation media and run e2fsk on the damaged file system.
• If the data is stored on some other file system, then try to mount it and transfer the data to some other media such as pen drive or tape.

Either of the aforementioned methods may be able to either rectify the file system or transfer the data to some other safe location. However, if you are unable to do so then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to recover Linux file system. Such read-only tools are able to recover lost data and file systems using fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery software is a Linux data recovery tool that performs data recovery of Linux file systems such as ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32. It is capable of recovering data from various hard drives such as SCSI, SATA, EIDE, and IDE. This Linux recovery tool supports various Linux distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Caldera, Mandrake, Sorcerer, TurboLinux, Slackware, Gentoo etc. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.

SCSI CRC Boot Errors May Cause Data Loss in Linux

Booting errors are very common in Linux operating system, which makes your system unbootable and unusable. The errors prevent your system from booting and render it totally inaccessible. They prove to be a big threat to your precious data. Such errors usually occur after unexpected system shutdown and hard drive data structure corruption.

Losing data from hard drive in such situations creates big problems for your business. So, you need to restore data from the latest backup to prevent data loss. However, in case backup is not updated or available, Linux Recovery solutions come to your help.

When you face boot errors, your Linux system refuses to boot properly. There are various types of boot errors, depending upon the type and cause of failure. One such error is SCSI CRC error. You may come across the below error message when your Linux operating system loads:

“Creating Root Device

mounting root filesystem

(scsi:0:0:0:0) CRC error during data-in phase

(scsi:0:0:0:0) CRC error in intermediate CRC packet

scsi: aborting command due to timeout: pid 0, scsi 0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0 read (10) ……”

The above error halts Linux boot process, making your hard drive inaccessible. To retrieve lost data in such cases, identify the problem and perform Data Recovery Linux by resolving it.

Cause

On the first appearance, this issue seems to be associated with hardware problems, but this is not the case. You may face this behavior due to any of the below reasons:

• Damaged or missing /boot directory from Linux operating system installation.

• File system error or corruption.

• Missing or corrupted initrd.

/boot directory is a major component of Linux operating system, which contains critical information about booting parameters and process. While initrd is a temporary data structure, which makes preparations before mounting of root file system.

Resolution

Use Rescue CD of Linux operating system to overcome this problem by restoring damaged /boot directory and initrd. When it fails, go for Linux Data Recovery software to retrieve lost data.

The Linux Data Recovery applications are able to scan damaged Linux hard drive and extract all lost data from it. They have read-only conduct on the drive to ensure safe recovery, without modifying original data on the disk.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most comprehensive and advanced utility to ensures absolute recovery of lost data. The software works well with all major distributions of Linux operating systems, such as SUSE, Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Fedora. It recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12 file system volumes.