1 Topic by naphta (edited by naphta 2013-07-10 21:09:06)

  • naphta
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Topic: System crashed while moving/expanding ext3 /home

Hi!

I made the same mistake than errarehumanumest http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=16676. But I don't have exactly the same problem. I made only a partial backup of my files and would like to recover the data on my /home partition.

The thing is that I haven't lost all my data. I can start Ubuntu normally and had acces to many of the files, but somme applications don't run properly. I guess that only a part of the partition ist damaged.

Then I started from an Ubuntu live cd and run GParted. The partition is fully resized: 274GB. But it shows that there are only 13 GB free, whereas there should be about 150GB. So I have lots of files that still work and the most part of the partition appears used.

I run testdisk and it said the file system was ok. I've been reading on forums and I understand that testdisk is only needed when there is no access to the partition at all.

Now I'm imaging the partition using gddrescue onto an external hard drive. It is really slow and I'm not sure if that's the best thing I can do. There are no errors for the moment, but I guess it may take hours, since GParted was almost finishing moving when the system crashed.

Maybe someone could help me? What should I do next?

Thanks a lot !

2 Reply by gedakc

  • gedakc
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Re: System crashed while moving/expanding ext3 /home

Making and image of the drive is the best way to ensure that if any recover efforts go wrong, then you can start again at the same point.

If you can copy your files using Ubuntu, then do that for as many as you can recover.  If you still have more files to recover, then you could try photorec.

If you still need more files, then you might need to look closer at the file system to see if you can determine where the crash occurred and then ensure that the remaining part of the move is completed.  This is a _lot_ more work.

What version of GParted are you using?
Recent versions can tell you if there is unallocated space in the partition (not just unused space in the file system).  The latest version of GParted is 0.16.1.