Recovering corrupted ext2-based file system from Linux

The Linux system is an open sourced operating system that is much more secure than other operating systems. It provides the freedom to administer your system by taking care of the look & feel and the applications to be installed, etc. However, as nothing is perfect in this world, the Linux systems too can get corrupt or fail. These corruption scenarios can occur because of virus infections, abrupt system shutdown, damaged file systems, etc. You should take the help of in-built corrective methods to rectify the problem. However, if you are not able to restore the data, then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software to recover data to the maximum possible extent.

Consider a scenario wherein you have a Linux 4 system. You switch on the system, but it fails to boot. An error message is displayed, that is: 

“ext2fs partition type 0x83. .... ext3-fs: journal inode is deleted.... mount: error 22 mounting ext3 error 2 mounting name switchroot: mountfailed:22 umount/initrd/dev failed:2 kernal panic - not syncing”

Cause:

The root cause of this error message is the hard disk has crashed after the abrupt system shut down and, is now inaccessible. The reason behind this is that some bad blocks must have formed in the inode  table, which is making the file system unrecoverable.

Resolution:

To resolve this problem, you should either of the following methods:

·     Start the system from the disaster recovery boot media and run e2fsck on the damaged file system. This tool is used to check and repair the integrity of the file system.

·     Try to mount the file system if it is on another file system and transfer the data to some other storage media such as memory cards, pen drive, etc.

The problem will be resolved using any of the mentioned methods. However, there are chances that you may still face the problem even after performing these methods. In such cases, you should use a third-party Ext2 data recovery software to recover the inaccessible data from Linux  file system. Such tools are read-only in nature that do not overwrite the existing data while scanning the damaged area.