I have a USB cd drive I can boot with.

DO you have any other sugestions beside Ubuntu?

Yes, absolutely, load up a spare flash drive with the CURRENT version of unRAID and boot it.  (although it will probably only let you assign 2 drives since you do not have a proper license key, don't assign ANY drives except the one you are trying to fix.  Do not assign a parity drive, only assign disk1.

 

Then, we can try to log in , type samba stop, and see if we can un-mount the drive.

 

It is probably just as disruptive as using the live CD, as either way, you will need to eventually do a full parity check and let it rebuild parity on whatever files are recovered.  Neither has any advantage over the other.

 

Joe L.

Well I just tried this metod.

I had to start the array with just disk1 no parity.

Tried to umout it It still says device is busy.

Well.This time for the hell of it I've tried:

reiserfsck --rebuild-tree -S -l /tmp/recovery.log /dev/sdb1

sdb is the disk1 and only one in the system(I've unplugged everything)

and reiserfsck is working on it.It says:

Pass 0:

The whole partition(244190624 blocks) is to be scanned

Skipping 15663 blocks (super block, journal, bitmaps) 244174961 blocks will be read.

It looks like it will take a verryy long time.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks Joe.I'll let you know what happens(of course).

Well.This time for the hell of it I've tried:

reiserfsck --rebuild-tree -S -l /tmp/recovery.log /dev/sdb1

sdb is the disk1 and only one in the system(I've unplugged everything)

and reiserfsck is working on it.It says:

Pass 0:

The whole partition(244190624 blocks) is to be scanned

Skipping 15663 blocks (super block, journal, bitmaps) 244174961 blocks will be read.

It looks like it will take a verryy long time.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Thanks Joe.I'll let you know what happens(of course).

When it is finished, you will have all the files and folders it can possibly recover, even those you "deleted" but where their data blocks had not been reused and/or overwritten.    This may be a few files, or it might be a lot.  The recovery process works its best at files in folders rather than at the root of the file-system.  Fortunately, that is how we tend to use our disks.  Your initial error overwrote a lot of disk blocks.  It is difficult to even guess how much you will be able to recover. 

 

Once the file-system recovery is completed, you will need to re-assign your disks on the devices page if you un-assigned them.  Initially, don't assign the parity drive initially at all.  If it is currently assigned, un-assign it BEFORE starting the array.  Assign ONLY the data drives.

 

When you start the array with only the data drives you should be able to browse the disks and see what was recovered.  After you can do that, then shut down the array, assign the parity drive, and re-start it.  It will want to build parity.  Let that run to completion.  Any previous parity data is completely worthless once you did the rebuild-tree outside of unRAID's ability to maintain parity.  You must rebuild parity once your data recovery task is complete.

 

Joe L.

Tibbar - got my fingers crossed for you.  I am cautiously optimistic that some of your data will be recovered.

 

A couple of quick points -

 

1 - Immediately after the operation the disk looked completely empty.  My heart sank.  But after restarting the array the disk no longer looked empty.

 

2 - My root directory was gobblty gook.  My heart sank again.  A bunch of junk files (unintelligible names and contents) and a bunch of junk directories (unintelligible names).  I went into each subdirectory looking for anything of value.  Some of the subdirectories also contained junk files and junk directories.  My confidence was very low - but I decided I would go through EVERYTHING before accepting defeat.  It took me about 10 minutes before I found the "jackpot" - a subdirectory that contained most all of the files and directories I was looking for - with correct names and discernable contents.  It was 2-3 levels deep.  All of the files appeared hidden - so it was important that I had my Windows Explorer settings set to view hidden and system files.

 

After my data recovery, my drive was a MESS!  I decided to copy the usable data off of the disk, and reformat the drive to start with a fresh, clean, reiserfsck format.  The way I did it was likely not the best, but Joe L. would likely be able to instruct you how to do this if you want to do the same.

Update?

I'm sorry I've been so quiet but I had lots of data to sort.

Looks like i was able to recover almost everything. I do not know exactly what i lost

because there was a lots of "crap" on that drive but I got my pictures back that's all it mattered.

It was just like "bjp999" described it.The data was a mess. Some of directory tree was messed up.

lot of files with out file extensions (still sorting it out).When I got the data back I've put it on 750WD-GP

drive but I've noticed the drive was freezing sometimes so I also copied it to a different drive and sure enuf

750WD will not pass quick test with "Western Digital Diagnostics".(RMAed).

Many thanks guys for all the help and patience.

Glad you recovered what was most important.  I would like to suggest a bit of reading, some of which are my own thoughts on backups:  UnRAID Topical Index, Backups

 

Brian:  I added your very helpful post above to the FAQ, How do I recover data from an unRAID disk?, and to the bottom of the Check Disk Filesystems page.  I think it should help users in the same situation get an idea of what they will face.

Glad there was a happy ending!  If anyone doubts that data recovery is possible under even some pretty unlikely situations, let them read THIS thread!!!

 

The more of these types of experiences I see, the more impressed I am with ReiserFS.

The more of these types of experiences I see, the more impressed I am with ReiserFS.

 

I have to agree with this.  ReiserFS is starting to impress me in this regard.

 

I accidentally screwed up when i first set my server up and formatted a disk (because of the formatting bug) that should not have been.  I realized what i had done very quickly and was able to stop it.  after reading these forums and finding the correct commands I was able to recover all of my data.  Like you said the structure was kinda screwed up and files were all over the place but i got everything i needed to back.

I am very happy it turned out as well as it did.  You overwrote over 2 million blocks of data.  That space could have been your precious files as easily as not.  I was not sure what to expect.

 

I'm really happy you got the pictures you were trying to recover.

 

Please post a syslog once you get the server back together.  At some point you will probably want to upgrade to the current release of unRAID as it might make recovery easier. (the un-mount might have worked properly... who knows)

 

Joe L.