[SWLUG] Data Recovery from unmountable disk

[Edward Evans]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:55:06 +0100
Toby Maxwell-Lyte <Toby.Maxwell-Lyte at eazyweb.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi Folks,
> 
> Discovered yesterday that the primary hard disk in one of our RH9
> linux  boxes has failed. It will no longer boot. Yes, I know I should
> have  upgraded to fedora or some other disti, but it's been working
> fine for  months...
 
...snip...

> When I try to run fdisk -l /dev/hda there is no output... but a load
> of  errors
> 
> Oct 17 11:01:20 [kernel] hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { 
> DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> Oct 17 11:01:20 [kernel] hda: wcache flush failed!
> Oct 17 11:01:21 [kernel] hda: task_in_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady 
> SeekComplete Error }
> Oct 17 11:01:21 [kernel] ide0: reset: success
>                 - Last output repeated 16 times -
> Oct 17 11:01:25 [kernel] hda: recal_intr: status=0x51 { DriveReady 
> SeekComplete Error }
> Oct 17 11:01:26 [kernel] ide0: reset: success
>                 - Last output repeated 126 times -
> Oct 17 11:02:02 [kernel] hda: task_no_data_intr: status=0x51 { 
> DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
> Oct 17 11:02:02 [kernel] hda: task_no_data_intr: error=0x04 { 
> DriveStatusError }
> Oct 17 11:02:02 [kernel] hda: wcache flush failed!

...snip...

> Can anyone help point me in the right direction? It seems that the 
> partition table has disappeared... is there any way of getting it
> back?

fdisk should work OK if the disc still works, even if the partition
table is rogered.  If the ONLY problem was the partition table you could
use fdisc to repair it because, of course, you kept a print out of the
table, with all the block numbers, when you partitioned the disc first
time.  Well, I hope you did!  So even though this advice is probably
no use to you now, at least it's a reminder to keep a copy of the
partition table when you get the (?new) disc going.

Edward