[ale] Again with the filesystem recovery SOLUTION?

[Dow Hurst]

Hey, I think it is great you've hung in there through all the stuff that has gone wrong!  The learning curve on doing Linux right has never gone away and probably never will.  Please keep posting and don't be discouraged.  I am amazed at how much more most of the guys on this list know than me.  I don't think I will ever achieve the mastery of computing the way some of these guys have.  On the filesystem side of things, you will appreciate on the long haul having journaling.  Ext2 is rather dated now.  We are at a transition point in filesystem usage.  The timetested ext2 is outdated due to large file systems with lots of data so fsck'ing is long and boring.  Performance isn't the best either for many applications.  Journaled file systems are here but haven't stood the test of time to the point we trust them the same way as ext2.  Hey, Bob put ext2 on our firewalls because he believes in using the tried and true on critical applications.  I used Reiserfs on my laptop for several years with no problems and quick boots.  I believe you'll need to balance your needs at home (quick boots are important to me!) against the frequency at which you backup the data.  Again, thanks for hanging in there and pointing out the viewpoint of a user who sysadmins when he has to.  There are millions of people that would prefer that over having to deal with learning all the intricacies of running of Linux box smoothly.  Lot's of us on this list are the opposite: hardcore sysadmins and coders who want to continually tweak everything and only work on real work cause we need to pay the bills.  See you,
Dow


>>> x3 at ChangingLINKS.com 01/27/03 23:51 PM >>>
On Monday 27 January 2003 19:25, Geoffrey wrote:
> ChangingLINKS.com wrote:
> > I may have found an easier way (by accident).
> >
> > As a follow-up:
> > The other day, I was installing Red 8.0 on a Maxtor drive, and the
> > circumstances cost me loss of data on a slave drive. After all of our
> > discussions about ext3, I brought up the topic and the "local ALE"
> > meeting here in Austin last week. One guy mentioned that he had done the
> > data recovery for ext3. Moreover, he said that ext3 gives a false sense
> > of security because the journal can "go bad" and make it difficult to get
> > the data back without losing the data. He said that ext3 is NOT a good
> > journalling filesystem, and that his computers run on something called
> > "xfs(?)" He went on to repeat that ext3 just has journaling and if you
> > don't NEED that, it is probably better to stick with ext2.
>
> Not that I'm a fan of ext3, but you take this as an expert's opinion?

Yes. And last time I read, it was backed up by the guy who wrote ext3, and 
others that I have discussed this with.

>
> > With that lesson, and my own experiences - I have declared ext3
> > "worthless." Until they get a better undelete AND I learn to backup the
> > journal, I will only be using ext2 filesystems - which solves my undelete
> > problem. <Drew spits in the direction of ext3>
>
> Sounds reasonable based on your experiences.
>
> > THE SOLUTION:
> > The installation process somehow caused the slave drive to be corrupted.
> > I believe it may have been due to me specifying a different name for it,
> > and indicating that it was ext2.
>
> It seems to me you're trying to blame corruption of the drive on the
> process.  Was this a mistake?  It wasn't the process that corrupted the
> drive.  The process did what yo told it to do.
>
> Point being, if there was data on that drive which you wanted to
> protect, you should have been more careful.  If it was a different drive
> altogether you could have disconnected it from the ide cable prior to
> the install.
>
> > When I booted the computer with the original drive (not the Maxtor), the
> > installation hung until I . . .
> >
> > went through a normal fsck /dev/hdc and said "y" to everything.
>
> Again, you run these processes quite carelessly.  fsck is not a tool to
> use in this manner.
>
> > When I logged in, the filesystem would not automatically mount with
> > fstab. I mounted manually, and did not specify file type.
> > I saw many of my files in "lost+found" directory on the drive.
> >
> > ||: To get the drive to mount with fstab, I had to change the filesystem
> >
> > specification to ext2!! I do not believe that the filesystem was
> > reformated - but :||
>
> All of this information should have been readily available if it was
> done during the install.  The install clearly tells you when it is
> formatting a partition.
>
> > Anyway, I was able to recover much of the data (using "Worker" to help
> > with the tedious process of renaming files).
> >
> > So apparently there is a way to convert the ext3 back to ext2 (either by
> > renaming the filesystem and claiming that it is ext2 - which I believe
> > was my "mistake") or by reformatting ext2 and recovering the data from
> > there!
>
> I'm going to do a bit of testing on this.  Someone else posted that you
> can mount an ext3 as ext2 and all you loose is journalling.  This sounds
> too simple. I would have thought that if you could do this, you could
> just as simply recover the files.
>
> Drew,
>
> Please, don't take this wrong, I'm really trying to be constructive here.
>
> Based on your posting, it appears to me that you are quite careless
> during your install process and administration of your systems.
> Identifying a partition during a new install incorrectly and running
> fsck on a file system as you mentioned earlier is just careless.  You
> blame a lot of your problems on the systems, yet it seems to me you
> don't take the proper precautions.  I would think you would be in much
> better shape if you proceed a bit more cautiously in the future.

You are probably right about my being careless. The data that I almost lost in 
this case was not that important, but would take me some time to replace.

Consider the fact that RedHat 8.0 does not easily install on *any* of my 
Maxtor drives (right, they are all bad - and all the other versions of RedHat 
ignore their badness). The precaution I did not take was "unplug that extra 
drive on the 3rd box."

Sure. I have only myself to blame for data loss, systems that crash because 
the OS doesn't detect the chip correctly (and that I don't immediately take 
the time to learn to configure correctly), or if I have to turn off IPTABLES 
just to ssh around my house, and for my lack of knowledge in most areas. 
I agree that I am not a good admin. Stuff here works well enough to use, but I 
am no where near being a pro - and honestly, I have thought about it - and I 
want to spend more time using the computer than admining it, so my dreams of 
buying lots of books and studying for an RHCE are dashed.

Contrarily, if it is Windows (anything) it is always their fault. I have 
learned the theme here - I will eventually conform. 

Or not.
-- 
Wishing you Happiness, Joy, and Laughter,
Drew Brown
http://www.ChangingLINKS.com
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