Lost FAT partition contents

[fuelinux 0]

ok, i know this might be wrong forum for my problem. I just didn't know where else to post it. Here is the situation:

I have 20 GB HD with 3 partitions on it.

1. /dev/hdb1 = Linux native - with Slackware 7.1 on it. Works just fine as far as I can tell;

2. /dev/hdb2 = FAT32 - with all the multimedia and games stuff;

3. /dev/hdb3 = Linux Swap.

 

The disk already had some issues when I've installed Slackware on it. some problems with File Allocation Table. Last time I was unable to delete files from FAT32 partition. It said "can't find path to file" or similar. So I had to cut the file, move it to second HD and delete it then. I couldn't perform scandisk on FAT32 either. In short, disk was problematic.

One day I found the HD is no longer accessible by Win95. Linux still works, but it can't read anything from FAT32 partition. It's been recognised, but when I cd to /dev/hdb2 and make ls in that directory, it seems empty.

That is, I lost my 6 GB of music, games and stuff on that partition. Tragedy

 

Here is my cry for help:

Is there any application under Linux (Windows fails, so don't even offer ) which could kind of recover lost stuff, so I could move it to the safe disk? I think it's gone, but I've asked it anyways. Perhaps you guys can help?

 

Thanks in advance

[Mel 0]

If you have ubuntu 4.10 , puppy linux or an older version

of Mepis and some free space on one of your drives,

You can try installing one of those. They will usually find all

your partitions when installing bootloader and rewrite part. table.

Fat32 on hdb is probably screwing up partition tables, like windows ,it wants to be #1.

[danleff 0]

Looks like fuelinux already has a thread on Linuxquestions.org about this.

 

Try this in Slax. Maybe it is just a permissions issue. As root user in a console, see where the partition is mounted. Type in;

 

df (hit the enter key)

 

See if this outputs where the partition is mounted on. Then cd to that partition;

 

cd /wherethepartitionismountedon

 

Then do;

 

ls

 

Which should list the contents. What does it say? Are your files/directories there?

[mkoller 0]

You might have a look at

http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/

 

and you should do fsck on the partitions.

[fuelinux 0]

Originally posted by danleff:

Quote:

Looks like fuelinux already has a thread on Linuxquestions.org about this.

 

Try this in Slax. Maybe it is just a permissions issue. As root user in a console, see where the partition is mounted. Type in;

 

df (hit the enter key)

 

See if this outputs where the partition is mounted on. Then cd to that partition;

 

cd /wherethepartitionismountedon

 

Then do;

 

ls

 

Which should list the contents. What does it say? Are your files/directories there?

 

yes, I posted this very same Q at linuxquestions too

as I stated above, the affected partition is mounted by default during installation. I didn't change even the name of partition. Slack suggested /fat-d and i accepted.

both cd /fat-d and cd /dev/hdb2 put me in the partition, but ls fails. the "folder" looks empty.

I think I just got corrupted partition. not sure yet is it software corruption or device fault. I have to try datarecovering proggies i guess.

 

Quote:

and you should do fsck on the partitions.

 

I don't know why but slack 7.1 fails to run fsck probably distro is corrupted too

 

thank you guys for response.

mkoller thanks for url

 

p.s. btw, i'm going to try knoppix v3.9 to access the damaged partition. what do u guys think?

[danleff 0]

If the partition is automounted, then you should get some readout like;

 

filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda9 10088520 3612736 5963316 38% /

 

 

In your case, if it is automounted, it should be

 

/dev/hda2 (block size)..........................

 

What does use% say?

 

In my case, it's 38%.

 

df -h should give you a more readable format, as well.

[fuelinux 0]

danleff

ok, thanks, i'll try this out and post a report