Can't read Linux formatted External HDD

LucianH

I have a WD My Passport Essential Portable HDD which I have been using as a PVR with a Samsung Smart TV. The so called Smart TV has now screwed up and is not recognising the drive. When a plug the drive ino a PC running Ubuntu 12 I get the error "Unable to mount" the drive (Error mounting: Remote I/O error).

I have been able to previously use the drive with Ubuntu (I copied files from another drive I was using as the PVR). The format that the TV uses appears to be xfs.

I really need to recover the programs I had recorded so if anybody knows how I can get the drive to mount and attempt to recover the files I would be extremely grateful.

Edit - Have just fired up the disk utility and the drive is being "seen" - it's just not mounted. I'm not a Linux user so I'm completely out of my depth.

-TangleFoot-

Does this help?

LucianH

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Does this help?

Probably but I'm really out of my depth. The artical states:

So next step is to edit /etc/fstab to specify the mount characteristic (filesystem type : xfs and associated mount point : /media/whatYouWant ) ; just add the line above

/dev/sdd6 /media/MyXFSDrive xfs defaults 0 0

Now create the mount point for your drive and mount it :

# sudo mkdir/media/MyXFSDrive
# sudo mount /dev/sdd6

It’s finished, you can access your drive and make your backups.

No idea what is meant by mount points etc.

What I have done is fired up gpart and got the following information about the drive:

File system: xfs
Size: 298.06GiB
Flags:
Path: /dev/sde1
Status: Not Mounter
Label: TvRecorder
UUID: d012c65f-3309-40b7-80e4-e57e1bc2eb04
First Sector: 2048
Last Sector: 625076223
Total Sectors: 625074176

Warning:
Unable to read the contents of the file systems!
Because of this some operations may be unavailable

The cause might be missing software package, The following list of software packages required for xfs file system support: xfsprogrs, xfsdump.

When I right click on the drive I only get "Format to" and "Manage Flags" options.

Any ideas anybody?

edit: have just noticed that gpart gives the option of "attempt data rescue" - how does this work and is it a safe thing to do or are there other things I should try first?

tombruton87

it should work out of the box if not a bit of setup should do the trick

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

debitcardmayhem

tombruton87 wrote: »

it should work out of the box if not a bit of setup should do the trick

sudo apt-get install ntfs-config

That won't help it's an xfs filesystem, looks like Lucian needs to do a fsck let me have a look for the options for xfs

debitcardmayhem

OK on my system at the moment (fedora ..) try this #
man xfs_check
and then if it is there try # sudo xfs_check -n /dev/sde1 ...which should just check for inconsistencies , then report back. Don't try to repair yet because I guess you want to see if it is possible first ... but probably the filesystem is goosed by the Telly

LucianH

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

OK on my system at the moment (fedora ..) try this #
man xfs_check
and then if it is there try # xfs_check -n /dev/sde1 ...which should just check for inconsistencies , then report back. Don't try to repair yet because I guess you want to see if it is possible first ... but probably the filesystem is goosed by the Telly

God this is so embarassing! I thought I was quite a techie having spent many a year on various (windows) PCs. I'm completely at a loss when it comes to linux (old dog new tricks type things)!

Do I use terminal to enter the commands:

man xfs_check

and then:

xfs_check -n /dev/sde1

(The last time I felt this stupid was when, at the age of thirty I tried to learn to ride a horse - and I was being told off by a 16 year old instructor (well she looked 16)!)

debitcardmayhem

LucianH wrote: »

God this is so embarassing! I thought I was quite a techie having spent many a year on various (windows) PCs. I'm completely at a loss when it comes to linux (old dog new tricks type things)!

Do I use terminal to enter the commands:

man xfs_check

and then:

xfs_check -n /dev/sde1

(The last time I felt this stupid was when, at the age of thirty I tried to learn to ride a horse - and I was being told off by a 16 year old instructor (well she looked 16)!)

Erm get back on your horse young man :rotfl:
Yes sorry I should have said a bit more sorry, better still in a terminal enter

man xfs_repair

if it finds that then look for an option -n saying no modify then enter q to quit the man page
then enter

sudo xfs_repair -n /dev/sde1

it should tell you what errors there are

-TangleFoot-

LucianH wrote: »

The following list of software packages required for xfs file system support: xfsprogrs, xfsdump.

Like the computer says, you're probably missing one or two software packages.

Get the packages to support XFS :

# sudo apt-get install xfsprogs
# sudo apt-get install xfsdump

LucianH

-TangleFoot- wrote: »

Like the computer says, you're probably missing one or two software packages.

OK. Just apt-gotted xfsprogs and xfsdump and gpart is no longer showing the warning and it is now showing how much space is used. Looked promising so I "safetly removed" the drive and reconnected but am now getting a different "Unable to mount" error:

"Error mounting: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sde1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so"

So the question now is, which is the best first thing to try: xfs_repair, fsck or gpart's "Attempt data rescue.." in order to rescue the data?

LucianH

OK, so it's getting late and have just realised that running xfs_repair -n /dev/sde1 with the -n should be safe. Result is

Phase 1 - find and verify superblock...
Phase 2 - using internal log
- scan filesystem freespace and inode maps...
- found root inode chunk
Phase 3 - for each AG...
- scan (but don't clear) agi unlinked lists...
- process known inodes and perform inode discovery...
- agno = 0
- agno = 1
- agno = 2
- agno = 3
- process newly discovered inodes...
Phase 4 - check for duplicate blocks...
- setting up duplicate extent list...
- check for inodes claiming duplicate blocks...
- agno = 0
- agno = 1
- agno = 2
- agno = 3
No modify flag set, skipping phase 5
Phase 6 - check inode connectivity...
- traversing filesystem ...
- traversal finished ...
- moving disconnected inodes to lost+found ...
Phase 7 - verify link counts...
No modify flag set, skipping filesystem flush and exiting.

Can anybody decipher?