All files missing from external ext3 hard drive

English Hardware
1

I just installed 11.1 two days ago. Today I tried copying media from an external drive (ext3 file system), using Dolphin. While copying, Dolphin “stalled” (That’s the exact and entire message it gave). I cancelled, rebooted and tried again. But now, all the files are missing. The folders remains, but appear empty. I continue to have the correct amount of free space/used space listed.

What happened to everything? Do I need to fsck? (it’s ext3, and I’ve read fsck is unnecessary and pointless on ext3). How do I fix this?

(I was preparing everything to burn for back up, this really sucks if I lost everything because I tried to back it up).

2

Hello, welcome to the Forums.

Try this - Unmount the partition that’s in trouble. Then open a console window and enter: su, to become root user then enter this command:

e2fsck -f -v /dev/sdij

where you replace sdij with the designation for the correct drive (i=a, b, c…) and partition (j=1, 2, 3…)

3

So I do need to fsck? The drive is ext3, not ext2.

Edit: Oh yeah, and unmounting doesn’t work with the drive, says it’s to busy to unmount. I have to physically shut it off to unmount it. It mounts just fine, but once I try to use it, the problem happens.

4

So I’m trying to use the “fdisk -l” command to identify the correct drive, (so I can fsck) and I get this error:

# sudo fdisk -l /dev/sd[a-z]
sudo: fdisk: command not found

What’s going on? I can’t run fdisk in opensuse? What’s the alternative?

5

On Wed March 11 2009 01:46 pm, BurnChao wrote:

>
> So I’m trying to use the “fdisk -l” command to identify the correct
> drive, (so I can fsck) and I get this error:
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> # sudo fdisk -l /dev/sd[a-z]
> sudo: fdisk: command not found
> --------------------
>
>
> What’s going on? I can’t run fdisk in opensuse? What’s the alternative?
>
>
Use su, to get root’s path.


su
fdisk -l

–
P. V.
“We’re all in this together, I’m pulling for you.” Red Green

6

That did the trick. I get this as part of the message from fdisk (/dev/sdc is the correct device):

...
Disk /dev/sdc doesn't contain a valid partition table

That’s my entire problem, correct? This is fixable with fsck? (All my googling seems to imply that fscking right now will not fix the problem, and will make my data unrecoverable)

7

Try gpart: gpart - Guess PC-type hard disk partitions
It should be installed by default. Check if it is installed with this command:

rpm -q gpart

Look at the man pages too with this command:

man gpart
8

Well, gpart didn’t solve anything, despite spending like 6 hours scanning. Doing some other tricks, I did manage to get my data off of the drive, but I’m sure the drive is shot. I think I’ll take it apart tomorrow, since it’s garbage now, and I want to see how it works.

Unless anyone has a better suggestion of what to do with a shot drive.

Thanks for the help everyone.

9

Oh yeah, another, related question. A while ago, I know there was an issue about Ubuntu killing drives by cycling them on and off while the machine sleeps, and Ubuntu claiming this was not just an Ubuntu problem but a Linux wide problem (caused by the manufacturers). So my question is: Does Opensuse 11.1 have this same issue? (I ask because I’m pretty sure this drive died early, I suspect relating to this issue) (I don’t know if anyone in this community even heard of the issue, and I don’t know what I sound like if you haven’t heard of it. At the time, it seemed like the issue made headlines inside the whole Linux community, not just the Ubuntu community. I hope I don’t sound like an ass).