-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 To add to the list of tools Andy mentioned: ddrescue is similar to dd, but is really great about not choking, even if your disk is in terrible shape. parted has its own rescue function that will try to find lost partitions, without you needing to know exactly where they were. And check out TestDisk and PhotoRec - they are brilliant tools, and can come through when all hope seems lost. Of course, all of these tools can only help if the computer at least recognizes that the drive is there, which is your problem. Try entering your BIOS setup and see if the drive shows up there. Also, try getting your ear close to the drive when you power on the computer and see if you can hear it spinning up. Also, keep trying. Try plugging it in again tomorrow. Try plugging it in two weeks from now. I can't give any rational explanation for why this would help, but I've seen drives that everyone has given up on inexplicably come back from the dead and become recognized again out of the blue. Of course, if this does happen, don't turn off your computer and do copy all your data somewhere else ASAP. Good luck! Ian Andy Schmid wrote: > I would first start troubleshooting everything. Change jumper settings, > ide channel, ribbon cables, etc. I'd also grep through your system > logs, see if dmesg outputs any info about the drive failing when you > boot up your system. You could also try the drive in a windows machine > to see if it even recognizes it in the disk manager. Also, I'd try it > on another motherboard or IDE controller. One more thing, you could see > if your BIOS support SMART, and try toggling that on/off. > > If you can get the os to see your /dev/hdd device, you can try copying > the disk bit by bit to a spare you have laying around (same size or > bigger), or to a file on your OS drive (if large enough). using the dd > command, this can be easily accomplished (on a working drive, that is). > > dd if=/dev/hdd of=/dev/hdx(second drive) > > replace of=/dev/hdx with a file path if you want to do it that way, e.x. > of=/home/user/file > > If you can do that successfully, you now have a 1 to 1 copy of your > drive, including any errors that were on it. You can now safely try to > recover your corrupt partition on the copy, without the risk of further > damaging the original. > > One thing I've done in the past to recover a corrupt partition table, is > basically rewrite the partition table (if you know the original > partition boundaries and types). Disclaimer: Be sure you aren't > formatting said partition, only write over the partition table. > > Feel free to contact me off list about this, in the past I've recovered > quite a few drives using gnu/linux tools. > > Andy > > On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 9:50 PM, p.daniels <teeahr1 at gmail.com > <mailto:teeahr1 at gmail.com>> wrote: > > Yep, it looks pretty grim. The IDE cable to my music drive had a > frayed end, and now this morning on boot, fsck said "no such file or > directory when trying to open /dev/sdd1. The superblock could not be > read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device > is valid and it really contains an ext2 filesystem (and not swap or > ufs or something else), then the superblock is corrupt and you might > try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: > e2fsck -b 8193 <device>". Running fsck manually gives the same message. > > Parted and fdisk no longer see sdd at all. It's just gone. I've > tried swapping it out and putting a different drive in there and it > detects fine, and the bad drive doesn't work no matter where I try > it (in another machine and in a USB enclosure) so I don't think it's > the connection. I am at a total loss. Does anyone have any advice in > this situation? Everything I know about data recovery I've learned > in the last (completely fruitless) 12 hours, so I may well be > missing an obvious trick. God, I hope so. > > -pete > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org <mailto:tclug-list at mn-linux.org> > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > http://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list - -- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Promote trust - Use PGP! Comment: http://blog.iangreenleaf.com/2008/08/why-i-sign-with-pgp.html iD8DBQFI2Q1NDTFvtHdOkUcRAoPEAJ0cHkmqu4GwM4iDqwJJ0NnrMlHCYwCgixBx y+yfwnfRKRbQoC8BWkVSABY= =yQR8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----