Ext3 partition won't mount
Hi experts,
I have a server running Ubuntu 10.04 server, which is virtualizing another Ubuntu 10.04 server with qemu / kvm. For some reason somebody yesterday decided to press the power button on the physical server. The virtual server never came back up.
I opened up virt-manager and had a look at my virtual machine. It had just a blinking cursor. I had previously thought maybe it was fsck'ing but it didn't appear to be. I pressed a few buttons on the keyboard, trying to get some input, and all of a sudden it showed a message saying something like "skipping /backup" which is the partition that has all of my files on it. Ubuntu loaded but /dev/sdb was not mounted at /backup. I have not been able to mount it, it gave an error that I can't remember but it may have been about a superblock.
Anyway I'm analysing the partition with testdisk at the moment, but I don't really know what to do from here. Any suggestions? Am I screwed? I have some of the data backed up on an external drive, so that's a bit of a relief. The partition is just a .qcow2 file as well, so maybe there is something I can do from the physical server?
Cheers,
Michael
I have a server running Ubuntu 10.04 server, which is virtualizing another Ubuntu 10.04 server with qemu / kvm. For some reason somebody yesterday decided to press the power button on the physical server. The virtual server never came back up.
I opened up virt-manager and had a look at my virtual machine. It had just a blinking cursor. I had previously thought maybe it was fsck'ing but it didn't appear to be. I pressed a few buttons on the keyboard, trying to get some input, and all of a sudden it showed a message saying something like "skipping /backup" which is the partition that has all of my files on it. Ubuntu loaded but /dev/sdb was not mounted at /backup. I have not been able to mount it, it gave an error that I can't remember but it may have been about a superblock.
Anyway I'm analysing the partition with testdisk at the moment, but I don't really know what to do from here. Any suggestions? Am I screwed? I have some of the data backed up on an external drive, so that's a bit of a relief. The partition is just a .qcow2 file as well, so maybe there is something I can do from the physical server?
Cheers,
Michael
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How did you proceed? Did you boot the VM off a bootable CD?
I recommend Parted Magic for the purpose: www.partedmagic.com
Then follow this guide in order to check whether the partition table may be restored:
http://www.howtoforge.com/data_recovery_with_testdisk
I recommend Parted Magic for the purpose: www.partedmagic.com
Then follow this guide in order to check whether the partition table may be restored:
http://www.howtoforge.com/data_recovery_with_testdisk
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The actual data image is on a separate qcow2 image than the operating system, so assumably it is safe to do any fsck / testdisk etc type of stuff without a live disc because the data partition is not mounted.
I have tried to "analyse" in test disk but it did not find any partitions. I am going to try and mount the image directly in the host OS.
I have tried to "analyse" in test disk but it did not find any partitions. I am going to try and mount the image directly in the host OS.
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UPDATE - Good news. On the host OS I was able to mount the disk image and access all my files! Yay!
Now I just need to know how to get it to mount in the guest OS. I will try the e2fsck with alternate superblock, but I want to take a backup of the disk image first.
qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 data.qcow2
partprobe /dev/nbd0
mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt/data/
ls -l /mnt/dataNow I just need to know how to get it to mount in the guest OS. I will try the e2fsck with alternate superblock, but I want to take a backup of the disk image first.
That is really good news indeed.
For a backup, I assume it will suffice to copy the qcow2 file to a safe backup location, the continue to work on the original.
For a backup, I assume it will suffice to copy the qcow2 file to a safe backup location, the continue to work on the original.
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Thanks torimar, the format / refill method will be my plan b if e2fsck doesn't work. I'm off to buy a bigger hard drive to back up the data. Will be back later to post my results and award points.
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Ok I wasn't able to fix the disk with testdisk or anything, so the best solution is to mount the image in the host os and scp all the files to a new partition. Thanks torimar for the help
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Solved
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