August 21 2010

Recovering corrupted Linux system after “fscking” a mounted system

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In the Linux operating system, fsck is a useful utility that scans the file system for consistency and integrity and on finding errors repairs them. It usually runs automatically at the time of startup if the system detects that the file system is in an inconsistent state. This utility runs both in interactive and non-interactive mode. Although this utility is pretty useful, at times it may backfire as well. For example, if you run fsck on a mounted Linux system then it could lead to system corruption and data loss. In such cases, you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to recover lost data from corrupted file system.

Consider a scenario wherein you are working on a Linux system that has live ext3 file system. You run the fsck utility and find the following error message:

“EXT3-fs: corrupt root Inode, run e2fsck”

If you run e2fsck on the same volume after getting the aforementioned error message, then the following error message is displayed:

“Root Inode is not a directory. Clear?”

Select either “Yes” or “No” when you get this error message. If you select “Yes”, then the parent entry of each Inode in the root directory is removed and the following message is displayed:

“Missing ‘..’ in directory Inode”

Now, you need to find the root cause of the problem.

Cause:
The root cause of the corruption in the file system is that you have used the fsck utility on the mounted Linux system. Once this happens, the system is unable to boot and the data becomes inaccessible.

Resolution
To resolve this issue, you should replace the existing file system. For this, you would need to format the existing system and reinstall Linux system. However, in that case you will not be able to retrieve valuable data. So, to repair the file system and to recover trapped data you need to use a third-party Linux recovery software to perform data recovery of Linux system. These tools are highly interactive and read-only in nature.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a Linux recovery tool that enables you to recover lost, formatted, and deleted data from the Linux systems. It is capable of performing ext2 recovery, ext3 recovery, and ext4 recovery. This Linux data 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.

Maria Peter a student of Mass Communication doing research on Data recovery Linux, Linux Data Recovery software And Ext3 Recovery.she is also a freelancer for http://www.data-recovery-linux.com/

July 31 2010

?The partition table on device was unreadable? Linux Error and Recovery

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The native partition type code used by a Linux hard drive is 0×83 irrespective of the file system (ext2, ext3, reiserfs etc.). When you partition your hard drive using fdisk or any other utility, it often consists of two partitions: a root directory partition (denoted as ‘/’) and a swap partition. A partition table is the index table that references all Linux hard drive partitions. So, if this table gets corrupt, the system couldn’t locate and thus access the partitions. In such situations, you need to use your recent data backup and restore lost information from it. However, if data backup is non-existent, invalid or not updated, Linux Data Recovery tools can be used to scan the affected hard drive.

Consider a scenario, you start your Linux system and it displays the following error message:

“The partition table on device <drive_name> was unreadable”

Cause

The partition table is corrupted or damaged. It can get corrupt due to unexpected shutdown, incorrect installation of updates, improper use of terminal commands, erroneous use of disk partitioning utilities, partition resizing and other similar causes.

Solution

To correct this issue, you need to carry out these steps:

You need to ensure that at least one of the partitions has been marked as Active

If you can boot the operating system, you should immediately backup all the important data

Next, you need to delete all the existing partitions and then recreate them. To accomplish the same, you can use fdisk or any other disk partitioning utility

Repartitioning the hard disk erases all the previously stored data. So, you need to use your recent data backup to restore it. If the data backup is not present or up to the mark, you need to scan your hard drive using Linux Recovery tools to extract the lost data.

Linux Data Recovery applications incorporate advanced scanning procedures to recover and restore the lost data. With elf-explanatory interface, these utilities provide easy recovery. In addition, these recovery software are read-only tools and hence they don’t perform any write operation. You can use these tools in any logical data loss case.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is efficient Linux Recovery tool. The software supports advanced recovery features and provides effective recovery results. It is a read-only tool that supports Ext2, Ext3 and ReiserFS file systems. This  Linux Data Recovery tools is compatible with almost all Linux distributions like Gentoo, Turbo Linux, SlackWare, SUSE etc.

Shally Spears a student of Mass Communication doing research on hard drive recovery software.

July 29 2010

Resolving ?Root Inode Is Not A Directory. Clear?? Linux Error

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In Linux operating system, you can check the integrity of file system and hard drive. This command resolves majority of issues with hard drive and file system, avoiding need of Linux Data Recovery. This command-line utility runs in five phases. In first phase, it checks data blocks and their size, in second phase, it checks for path names. In the following phases, connectivity, references counts, and the cylinder groups are examined respectively. If the fsck fails in second phase, situations can be very drastic.

The fsck may fail in the second phase due to iNode issues. In a practical scenario, you may come across the below error message while checking integrity and consistency of your system through fsck utility:

“Root inode is not a directory. Clear?”

After this error message, you can not access your Linux hard drive and encounter serious data loss situations. In order to gain access of your valuable data in such circumstances, you need to find out the cause of this problem and perform Data Recovery Linux by sorting it out.

Grounds of the issue:

This problem occurs after corruption to the root iNode. The corruption might be caused by improper system shutdown, virus infection, system crash, and more.

In Linux file system, iNode is a data structure that holds all the critical information of files and directories, except their names and contents. It is a unique number, assigned to every file/directory. Every file/directory has an individual iNode. The file/directory is accessed through iNode only.

In the particular situation, the root iNode of Linux system is damaged. It is generally the second iNode. Root iNode is first iNode to file system and it represents starting point or root of file system.

If you select ‘Yes’ in above error message, it will remove parent entry of every iNode from root directory. In third phase of the fsck utility, root iNode is tried to recover, but you encounter further error if the process fails:

“Cannot Allocate Root Inode”

In such critical situations, Linux Data Recovery is required to extract lost data. The recovery is best possible using Linux Recovery software, which perform absolute recovery in the majority of data loss situations. With read-only conduct and simple graphical user interface, the applications are completely safe and easy to use.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most advanced application to recover lost, missing, and inaccessible Linux data. It recovers from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32. The software is designed for all distributions of Linux operating system including SUSE, Debian, Red Hat, and Fedora.

Maria Peter a student of Mass Communication doing research on Linux Data recovery, Linux Recovery software And Ext3 Recovery. He is also a freelancer for http://www.data-recovery-linux.com/

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July 29 2010

Bad Block At Beginning Of Inode Table May Cause Data Loss In Linux

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Are you unable to mount your Linux hard drive volume? Are you facing superblock, inode, or file system corruption like error messages while booting your Linux system? Such situations are caused by corruption of Linux hard drive metadata structures. This behavior of Linux operating system renders all your significant data inaccessible and leads to significant data loss. In order to get your mission-critical data recovered, you should opt for Linux Data Recovery solutions through reliable tools.

In a practical scenario, you may encounter the below error messages after copying your data through ddrescue command-line tool and running e2fsck utility:

“Superblock has a bad ext3 journal (inode 8).
Clear? Yes”

Or

“/dev/sdf was not cleanly unmounted, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Missing ‘..’ in directory inode 1785876.
Fix? Yes

Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Root inode is not a directory; aborting.
e2fsck: aborted
fsck.ext2 /dev/sdf failed (status 0×8). Run manually.”

After the above error message, you can not access your precious data from the hard drive. In order to get your lost data back, and to sort out these errors, you should perform Data Recovery Linux.

Resolution

The problem is caused by bad block at the starting of inode table. You can fix the problem by reconstructing root inode. It is quite easy to reconstruct the root inode, however the problem is that root inode needs to be placed at fixed location and currently a bad block is located there.

Forcing the hard drive to use spare block from its pool is possible, however a bad block is often an indicator of the beginning of hard drive crash. Thus, replacing the affected hard drive with new one is the safest way to recover from this situation. Use ‘dd’ command to copy data from old hard drive to new one. Then run e2fsck to create a new root directory on the new hard drive, and shift all the inodes, respectively.

If the above method does not solve your problem, Linux Recovery applications perform absolute recovery. They use high-end scanning techniques to methodically scan the entire hard drive and get all your precious data recovered. The Linux Data Recovery software come equipped with simple and rich graphical user interface to enable easy recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most effective solution for all logical data loss scenarios. The software recovers Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32 file system volumes. It is compatible with all major distributions of Linux operating system such as Red Hat, Debian, Fedora, SUSE, and Ubuntu.

Maria Peter a student of Mass Communication doing research on Data recovery Linux , Linux Data Recovery software And Ext2 Recovery. she is also a freelancer for http://ext3-file-recovery.data-recovery-linux.com/

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July 18 2010

Recovering Linux hard drive in a dual boot system

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A lot of us use the dual boot systems in which multiple operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, can be accommodated in an effort to get the best of all worlds. Using such systems can be very helpful when you have to test certain software on various platforms. In these systems, you have the option to switch to the particular system at the startup.

However, sometimes due to various reasons the system is unable to start. In such situations, you should resort to performing in-place methods to fix the problem. If you are not able to address the situation, then you should use a third-party Linux recovery software to resolve the issue.

Consider a scenario wherein you have converted your system in a dual-boot system with Windows XP and RedHat Linux distribution. While in the Windows system, you accidentally clicked the ‘Hibernate’ option instead of the ‘Shut Down’ option. Now, when you start your system you are unable to do so.

Cause:

The root cause of this problematic situation is that when you chose to hibernate rather than shut down, then the MBR may have got overwritten by the GRUB. Therefore, you are unable to start the Linux system.

Resolution:

To resolve this issue, you need to restore the GRUB. To do this, you need to perform the following steps:

Boot the system with the Fedora (RedHat) distribution CD.

At the boot prompt, enter the following command and press Enter.

boot: linux rescue

You will prompted for few questions. Answer them and the Fedora installer will mount the system in the /mnt/sysimage directory.

Make the directory as your root directory by using the following command:

# chroot /mnt/sysimage

# _

From here, use the following command to install GRUB loader on the MBR:

# grub-install /dev/hda

Restart the system. It should be able to boot properly now.

However, if the problem is still not resolved then you should use reformat the hard disk and reinstall the operating system. But this method would remove all the valuable data, in all probability. So to restore the inaccessible data, you should use a third-party Linux hard drive recovery software. Such Linux recovery tools are read-only in nature that use fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a Linux hard drive recovery software that recovers lost, deleted, or formatted data from inaccessible Linux hard drives. It is able to recover data from various file systems such as ext2, ext3, ext4, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12. In addition, this Linux recovery tool is capable of recovering data from various types of hard drives such as SCSI, SATA, EIDE, and IDE. Also, this Linux recovery software is supported by 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.

The Author is a B-tech and doing research on linux hard drive recovery software and also analyses how to perform mac hard drive recovery

July 07 2010

Severe Data Loss In Linux Upon Running Fsck On Mounted File System

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Are you unable to mount your Linux hard drive volume? The problem could be due to corruption the Linux hard drive data structures. To sort out such problems, Linux provides fsck utility. It is a command-line utility, which checks integrity and consistency of Linux file system, finds errors, and tries to fix them. However, in case if you run this utility on a mounted or online file system, you may come across catastrophic data loss situations. At this point, you need to carry out Linux Data Recovery to get your valuable data back.

If you mistakenly run fsck on a mounted Linux file system, the root iNode may got damaged and all iNodes start calling similar blocks. When you try to mount the volume after fsck, you may encounter the below error message:

“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”

After this behavior of Linux operating system, when you run ‘dmesg’, as stated in the above error message, you encounter further error message:

“EXT3-fs: corrupt root inode, run e2fsck”

When you run e2fsck, as suggested in above error, it gives you further error message stating:

“Root inode is not a directory. Clear?”

If you say ‘yes’ to above error, then it goes to fix the problem and then remove parent entry for each iNode in root directory. When you unallocate root iNode and blocks manually, and then try to rebuilt root iNode, it says that it can not allocate any block in file system.

Cause

This behavior is caused due to corruption to the file system, superblock, root iNode, or any other Linux data structure. Operating system can not locate the hard drive volumes and stored files, after corruption to the data structure.

Resolution

To sort out this problem and perform Ext3 Recovery, you need to format the hard drive and reinstall operating system. Although, this method is able to fix most of the hard drive related problems, however also deleted all hard drive volumes and files.

This entire behavior cause serious data loss situations and need Ext3 Recovery software to extract lost data. The applications perform Data Recovery Linux in a quick, safe, and easy way.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most excellent tool to perform absolute recovery of lost data. It recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2, FAT32, FAT16, and FAT12. The software is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000.

Maria Peter a student of Mass Communication doing research on Data Recovery linux, Linux Recovery software And Ext2 Recovery. He is also a freelancer for http://www.data-recovery-linux.com/

July 01 2010

Root iNode Corruption Cause Data Loss in Linux

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In Linux and other Unix-like operating system, you can detect and repair hard drive errors using fsck command. This command runs in 5 phases. In the first phase, it checks data blocks and their size while in second phase file and directory pathnames are checked. In the remaining three phases, the connectivity, file reference counts and the cylinder groups are examined respectively.

If in the second phase, fsck disk checking process fails, you might come across critical disk corruption situations and possibly data loss. In such circumstances, to retrieve lost, missing and inaccessible data from affected hard drive, you need to opt for linux data recovery solutions. The problem may occur due to corrupted or missing iNode entries from Linux hard drive. At this point, you might encounter below error message: “Root iNode is not a directory. Clear?” This behavior of Linux operating system renders all of your critical data on hard drive inaccessible and results into serious data loss situations. In order to salvage data from affected drive, you need to carry out data recovery linux by sorting out the problem.

Root of the issue

This problem occurs due to corruption to the root iNode of your Linux computer. The iNode is a critical data structure of Linux file systems that stores all critical information of the files and directories that are currently stored on the hard drive. The iNode could be referred as a unique number that is assigned to every file and for every file there is a single iNode. In this specific situation, root iNode that is generally the iNode number two has got corrupted. The root iNode is first iNode of Linux file system and represents starting point or root of the file system.

If you select ‘Yes’ in above error message, it would delete parent entry of every iNode from root directory. In such critical situations, you need to recover your lost data through third-party linux recovery software. Such applications employ high-end scanning techniques to methodically scan the entire hard drive and extract all of the lost data from it. The linux data recovery software are quite easy to use as they self-descriptive and interactive user interface with rich graphical support. The tools never alter original data on the hard drive as they have read-only and non-destructive conduct.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most effective and comprehensive application for quick, easy and secure recovery. It works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system including Red Hat, Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian. The software recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2 and ReiserFS file system volumes.

Author is researching on Linux operating system super block corruption error that become the cause of data loss. For lost linux recovery author suggested to use linux data recovery software to recover lost linux data.