Room for Fabby and Ionică Bizău

Ionică Bizău

3:25 PM

Thanks

Fabby

So I've told you already what we're going to do and I'll number the steps.

Ionică Bizău

The first thing I'm confused about is how to format the external HDD to be able to write on it.

Fabby

Tell me which ones you need help with:

1. boot Live USB

2 install ddrescue and testdisk

Ionică Bizău

1. Done.
2. Done.

Fabby

3. ddrescue a copy of your SSD onto the HDD.
4 As that one is NTFS and you cannot mount it, resize it with 200+GB so you can take a copy of your SD onto it

5 ddrescue SSD on HDD EXT 4 partition

Ionică Bizău

3:28 PM

Starting with step 3 I'm lost.

Fabby

6 run testdisk on that partition, recovering files to a third partition.

3. man ddrescue

Ionică Bizău

Before running ddrescue, I want to know why I cannot write anything on my HDD

Fabby

I'm not going to do all the work for you, I'm just pointing you in the right direction.

@IonicăBizău I dunno and I don't care: the only thing you need is a partition in EXT4 on there and that should be mountable and writeable.

Ionică Bizău

OK, doing that.

Fabby

so fire up gparted (it's a GUI) and resize NTFS so you have enough space to add ETX4

don't forget that dd is the abbreviation of disk destroyer

Ionică Bizău

3:31 PM

The whole HDD is now ext4.

Fabby

Very powerful tool, but if you use it the wrong way, easy to wipe all data

Ionică Bizău

Right.

Fabby

@IonicăBizău so resize with gparted

Ionică Bizău

Can you tell me in short why resize is needed?

Fabby

because it's NTFS

we need to recover EXT4 to EXT4?

Ionică Bizău

3:33 PM

I've just formatted it to ext4

Fabby

so it's empy?

Ionică Bizău

The laptop SSD is ext4.

Yes, it's empty.

So, both are ext4.

Fabby

Oh.

Ionică Bizău

I mounted the HDD to /mnt/hdd

Fabby

OK different strategy:

4 partitions on the HDD:

Ionică Bizău

3:35 PM

The SSD has three partitions: fat32, ext4 and linux-swap.

Fabby

(easier so we don't make mistakes)

yup, create them exactly as they are on the HDD in the same order with the same size

Ionică Bizău

OK

Fabby

For my reference: sda =ssd; sdb = USB sdc=HDD

Ionică Bizău

The ext4 has 94.40 GB--can I put 100GB?

Or it should be exact?

Fabby

exact is best, bigger is good.

Ionică Bizău

3:40 PM

I put bigger, to make sure it will enter

OK:

fat32: 512MB
ext4: 100GB
linux-swap: 16GB

Should I set up the flags?

I'm not sure how to do that.

Fabby

now create another one of 100GB and give me the lsblk output

Ionică Bizău

Another ext4?

Fabby

yup

Ionică Bizău

It looks like this ^

Should I click the Apply button?

Fabby

yup

now show me the lsblk and the mount outputs

Ionică Bizău

3:45 PM

$ lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb           8:16   1   7.4G  0 disk /cdrom
├─sdb2        8:18   1   2.3M  0 part
└─sdb1        8:17   1   1.5G  0 part
sr0          11:0    1  1024M  0 rom
loop0         7:0    0   1.5G  1 loop /rofs
sdc           8:32   0   1.8T  0 disk
├─sdc2        8:34   0   100G  0 part
├─sdc3        8:35   0    16G  0 part
├─sdc1        8:33   0   512M  0 part
└─sdc4        8:36   0   100G  0 part
sda           8:0    0 111.8G  0 disk
├─sda2        8:2    0  95.4G  0 part

Fabby

let's wait for the mount output first

Ionică Bizău

What is the mount output?

What command should I run?

Fabby

oh- ooh...

Ionică Bizău

$ mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=8135456k,nr_inodes=2033864,mode=755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,size=1630640k,mode=755)
/dev/sdb on /cdrom type iso9660 (ro,noatime,nojoliet,check=s,map=n,blocksize=2048)
/dev/loop0 on /rofs type squashfs (ro,noatime)

This?

Fabby

Good! Because i was going to write: if you don't know how to do that, you're not qualified to do any data recovery

Ionică Bizău

3:47 PM

Well.. I can learn :-)

Fabby

For my reference: sda =ssd; sdb = USB sdc=HDD

OK, so the following command is going to copy your EFI partition from SSD to HDD:

(Do not execute, read it and verify and ask questions)

Ionică Bizău

ok

Fabby

sorry, we need to mount sdc4 first to store the log file

Ionică Bizău

sdc4?

Fabby

mkdir /mnt/Recovery&&mount /dev/sdc4 /mnt/Recovery

@IonicăBizău yup, that's why we need 4 eyes.

sdd is the exrternal HDD on my machine

Ionică Bizău

3:53 PM

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdc,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error

       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail or so.

Should it be sdc4?

edited

OK

SDC4

Mounted.

ddrescue --direct --retry-passes=5 --verbose /dev/sda1 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/Recovery/sda1.log

Ionică Bizău

3:54 PM

So, the last argument is the log file path.

Fabby

the higher the retry-passes, the higher the likelyhood something will be recovered, but the longer it'll take.

Ionică Bizău

This is going to move the fat32, into the HDD, right?

Fabby

Minimum 3, I normally take 5 unless it's business-critical and then I take 10

Ionică Bizău

Good to know.

Fabby

@IonicăBizău yes

Ionică Bizău

3:55 PM

OK, going to run it.

ddrescue --direct --retry-passes=5 --verbose /dev/sda1 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/Recovery/sda1.log
ddrescue: Output file exists and is not a regular file.
ddrescue: Use '--force' if you really want to overwrite it, but be
          aware that all existing data in the output file will be lost.
Try 'ddrescue --help' for more information.

Fabby

It should go pretty quickly as it's only 512MB

Ionică Bizău

Should I do everything with sudo?

Fabby

no.

it's just saying it'll delete everything that is stored on /dev/sdc1

Ionică Bizău

Because I didn't have permision to mkdir /mnt/Recovery and mount

Fabby

ah.

you're not running as root.

Ionică Bizău

3:56 PM

$ ddrescue --direct --retry-passes=5 --verbose /dev/sda1 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/Recovery/sda1.log --force
ddrescue: Can't open input file: Permission denied

Fabby

sudo -s

Ionică Bizău

That's what I'm asking, should I go with sudo?

Ok

Fabby

data recovery = low-level - run as root and verify everything twice.

Ionică Bizău

# ddrescue --direct --retry-passes=5 --verbose /dev/sda1 /dev/sdc1 /mnt/Recovery/sda1.log --force
GNU ddrescue 1.19
About to copy 536870 kBytes from /dev/sda1 to /dev/sdc1.
    Starting positions: infile = 0 B,  outfile = 0 B
    Copy block size: 128 sectors       Initial skip size: 128 sectors
Sector size: 512 Bytes

Press Ctrl-C to interrupt
rescued:   536870 kB,  errsize:       0 B,  current rate:   38862 kB/s
   ipos:   536805 kB,   errors:       0,    average rate:     134 MB/s
   opos:   536805 kB, run time:       4 s,  successful read:       0 s ago

Fabby

rinse and repeat for: sda2

Ionică Bizău

3:58 PM

When we run it for sda2, can we know any progress?

Like percentage or something?

Fabby

that's what the --verbose is for

Ionică Bizău

Something like ddrescue --direct --retry-passes=5 --verbose /dev/sda2 /dev/sdc2 /mnt/Recovery/sda2.log --force?

Ok

Fabby

skip SWAP: that's just here as a plcaeholder

Ionică Bizău

sda3 is swap

Fabby

I'm going for a smoke and a drink. (Pepsi, no Rum & Coke yet)

Ionică Bizău

3:59 PM

Ok :) Enjoy

Should I run it for sda2, then?

Fabby

Yes, I'm smoking while you do that

:P

Ionică Bizău

OK, running.

14846 MB so far

No errors as far I can understand

errsize: 0B

The goal is to reach some number close to 102400, right?

Fabby

I'm back

@IonicăBizău exactly: 97280 MB

how much now?

Ionică Bizău

4:15 PM

76,5k, so far

no errors

Fabby

this is the command to keep when you want to try again.

Ionică Bizău

Thanks a lot for this, @Fabby

Fabby

It pings everyone who's user name starts with "Fabb" in this channel if you leave the "y" out.

@I pings everyone whose username starts with I

>:-)

Ionică Bizău

Whoups, didn't know that.

But it didn't ping me.

Fabby

I need to go to the restaurant soon though (I'm invited, so I'm definitely going)

@Io

maybe 2 letters?

Ionică Bizău

4:18 PM

Nopes.

Fabby

@Ion 3?

Ionică Bizău

Yes :D

OK, just to understand: this command I've run, it brings all the files from SSD to HDD from the ext4 extension, is that right?

Fabby

OK, so three minimum. Mmmh...

Ionică Bizău

Can I browse them on the HDD when it's done?

Fabby

it copies the entire partition. not the individual fles.

Ionică Bizău

4:19 PM

What does that mean more exactly?

Fabby

individual files is the next step:

mount and repair /dev/sdc2

Ionică Bizău

Ok

Fabby

leaving /dev/sda2 intact.

Ionică Bizău

99,7k

No errors, so far.

Fabby

nearly done

Ionică Bizău

4:21 PM

Finished

Fabby

OK

Ionică Bizău

And now should I mount sbc2?

mkdir /mnt/SSD-copy

OK

rmdir /mnt/SSD

4:22 PM

OK, I did a mv :)

Fabby

mount /dev/sdc2 /mnt/SSD-copy

what's the output?

Ionică Bizău

Shouldn't it be sdc2?

Fabby

edited.

Ionică Bizău

mount: mount /dev/sdc2 on /mnt/SSD-copy failed: Structure needs cleaning

I think here is where the real fun starts, lol

Fabby

fsck /dev/sdc2

2!!! TWO!

Ionică Bizău

4:23 PM

Right

Fabby

what does that say?

Ionică Bizău

This is gonna ask me a lot of questions

# fsck /dev/sdc2
fsck from util-linux 2.27.1
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
ext2fs_check_desc: Corrupt group descriptor: bad block for block bitmap
fsck.ext4: Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...
Block bitmap for group 0 is not in group.  (block 65552877)
Relocate<y>?

I already ran this on the ssd before contacting you

Fabby

Y

Shit!

Ionică Bizău

Inode table for group 0 is not in group.  (block 1524232041)
WARNING: SEVERE DATA LOSS POSSIBLE.
Relocate<y>?

Fabby

What did you respond?

I need to read the manual now.

Ionică Bizău

4:25 PM

I responded with n to those ^

Fabby

hold on

N skip that one.

@IonicăBizău what other questions?

Working without questions???

Ionică Bizău

So, it didn't work

I answered n to those with sever data loss

Fabby

What do you mean by "it didn't work"

did you try remounting?

Ionică Bizău

...
e 0x5f7b.  FIXED.
fsck.ext4: e2fsck_read_bitmaps: illegal bitmap block(s) for /dev/sdc2

/dev/sdc2: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

/dev/sdc2: ********** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors **********

And now I'll try mounting

Same error

Fabby

Ah!

Ionică Bizău

4:31 PM

mount: mount /dev/sdc2 on /mnt/SSD-copy failed: Structure needs cleaning

Fabby

Don't say "it didn't work" then1

just simple fsck again.

copy-paste errors again

Smoke. BRB

Ionică Bizău

fsck /dev/sdc2

This?

Fabby

yup

Ionică Bizău

Pretty much the same...

WARNING: SEVERE DATA LOSS POSSIBLE.
Relocate<y>? no
Group descriptor 124 checksum is 0x50cf, should be 0x5f7b.  FIXED.
fsck.ext4: e2fsck_read_bitmaps: illegal bitmap block(s) for /dev/sdc2

/dev/sdc2: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

/dev/sdc2: ********** WARNING: Filesystem still has errors **********

Fabby

now you have to say yes to the first one

Don't do anything unless I tell you to do so...

Ionică Bizău

4:36 PM

Ok

Fabby

Please?

Ionică Bizău

yes to SEVERE data loss?

Fabby

yup as it doesn't mount

Ionică Bizău

What if I say yes to all?

Will it mount?

Fabby

no

one by one

Ionică Bizău

4:36 PM

I can remake the copy later and try one by one

Fabby

tell them one by one I'll tell you what to do

Ionică Bizău

OK

Still, the same error

Fabby

just do a:

fsck /dev/sdc2

copy-paste output

I'll tell you what to do

Ionică Bizău

# fsck /dev/sdc2
fsck from util-linux 2.27.1
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
ext2fs_check_desc: Corrupt group descriptor: bad block for block bitmap
fsck.ext4: Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...
Block bitmap for group 0 is not in group.  (block 65552877)
Relocate<y>? yes
Inode table for group 0 is not in group.  (block 1524232041)
WARNING: SEVERE DATA LOSS POSSIBLE.
Relocate<y>? yes
One or more block group descriptor checksums are invalid.  Fix<y>? yes
Group descriptor 0 checksum is 0x80d2, should be 0xbd49.  FIXED.

Fabby

no.

Ionică Bizău

4:40 PM

I will have to go in about 20 minutes...

OK, what did I do wrong?

Fabby

fsck /dev/sdc2 [enter]

copy-paste output and I'll tell you what to do.

when to say yes and when to say nO

Ionică Bizău

root@ubuntu:/mnt# fsck /dev/sdc2
fsck from util-linux 2.27.1
e2fsck 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
ext2fs_check_desc: Corrupt group descriptor: bad block for block bitmap
fsck.ext4: Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...
Block bitmap for group 0 is not in group.  (block 65552877)
Relocate<y>?

Fabby

Y

Ionică Bizău

Inode table for group 0 is not in group.  (block 1524232041)
WARNING: SEVERE DATA LOSS POSSIBLE.
Relocate<y>?

Fabby

damn! I can't type any more "Y"

so do yes again

Ionică Bizău

4:41 PM

Ok

Fabby

working???

Ionică Bizău

One or more block group descriptor checksums are invalid.  Fix<y>?

All Y?

Fabby

No!!!

Ionică Bizău

Ok

Fabby

I'll tell you what to do.

Ionică Bizău

4:42 PM

Yes to this?

Fabby

Y now

Ionică Bizău

Group descriptor 0 checksum is 0x80d2, should be 0xbd49. FIXED.
Inode bitmap for group 3 is not in group. (block 581059213)
Relocate<y>?

Fabby

Y

Ionică Bizău

Group descriptor 3 checksum is 0xb988, should be 0x924c.  FIXED.
Inode bitmap for group 4 is not in group.  (block 95287692)
Relocate<y>?

This way is gonna be really slow

Fabby

Y

Ionică Bizău

4:43 PM

Until it reaches 124, we are at 3

Inode table for group 4 is not in group.  (block 95287692)
WARNING: SEVERE DATA LOSS POSSIBLE.
Relocate<y>?

Fabby

Shit. I thought there would be only one severe data loss once we did the first one.

yes to all

Ionică Bizău

OK, did yes to all

And now?

Fabby

done?

Ionică Bizău

mount: mount /dev/sdc2 on /mnt/SSD-copy failed: Structure needs cleaning

Fabby

mount again.

fsck again

Ionică Bizău

4:45 PM

The same

Fabby

CtrlC

Ionică Bizău

Ok

Fabby

reading man page for mkfs

mkfs.ext4 -S /dev/sdc2

mount again afterwards

Ionică Bizău

mkfs.ext4 -S /dev/sdc2
mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
/dev/sdc2 contains a ext4 file system
	last mounted on / on Fri Apr 20 13:52:56 2018
Proceed anyway? (y,n)

y?

Fabby

Y that's a last-ditch method

to get it to mount

Ionică Bizău

4:48 PM

Creating filesystem with 26214400 4k blocks and 6553600 inodes
Filesystem UUID: c1fcf698-3801-4132-bfec-45bdbc01ac1e
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
	32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
	4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872

Allocating group tables: done
Skipping journal creation in super-only mode
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

Fabby

mount

working???

I need to go in 2 minutes

Ionică Bizău

Worked!!!!

Some files are unaccesable, but that's fine

Fabby

copy all files you can already!

Ionică Bizău

THANKS A LOT

Gonna give you a bounty soon