Linux data recovery post MBR corruption

When you start your Linux machine, the very first thing that occurs is hardware initialization. After this, GRUB loads from Master Boot Record of hard drive based on the configuration.

You may see boot menu showing all operating system in the list from that you can start system or initialize Linux kernel. In case you do not observe such behavior, the problem can be related to MBR or GRUB. In such situations, you may need to format the disk and perform data recovery Linux.In a practical scenario, you may fail to boot your Linux based computer when you install the Windows OS on the same machine. This behavior makes all your precious data inaccessible from Linux disk.

Root Cause
This problem usually occurs if the MBR gets overwritten. It makes your Linux system unbootable. The problem may occur when you install Windows operating system on a disk that has Linux operating system already installed.

Resolution
Try the following recovery methods to fix this problem-
Boot your system using Linux Rescue CD or installation disk. Enter the disk and use the following command on boot prompt-
root=/dev/hdXX. Here 'hdXX' is boot partition of the disk.
Format the hard drive and reinstall the Linux operating system. This behavior removes all your significant data from the drive and thus requires Linux file recovery to be fixed.
Restore your valuable data from the most recent backup. It is the best Ext3 recovery method. However, you must have an updated backup to ensure absolute recovery.
Use Linux data recovery software. The Ext4 recovery applications are capable of fixing all data loss situations.

Linux data loss due to root directory corruption

Linux is a new age OS  made of various data structures. Among all other data structures and components of Linux machine, root directory is the most important one. It is the base of data storage method in Linux operating system. However, in some situations, the root directory may get damaged and data loss situations occur. At this point of time, you are required to opt for Linux recovery solutions. 

More about root Directory
Root directory is initial point of Linux hard drive, from where operating system starts looking for files stored on hard drive. Every file and folder on Linux system has an entry in the root directory. Linux root directory is divided into various subdirectories, which are arranged in hierarchical format.

There are numerous reasons of root directory corruption in Linux operating system, such as virus infection, improper system shutdown, operating system malfunction, accidental deletion, and hardware crash. You may face strange behavior of Linux operating system and may encounter error messages similar to the following ones after root directory corruption-

“No such file or directory”
System becomes unbootable
System fails to create or delete files and folders

Resolution

In order to solve this problem and perform data recovery Linux, you need to attempt the below methods-

Scan your Linux hard disk using fsck command. Run this Linux command in the single-user mode, without mounting the file system. It is an inbuilt command of Linux Machine that scans the file system for defects and then attempt to fix them.

Format Linux hard drive and reinstall the operating system. Formatting is capable of fixing all the hard drive errors. However, it leads to severe data loss.
Restore your precious data from an updated backup. In order to ensure absolute Linux recovery, you must have a valid and current backup.
Perform data recovery using advanced Linux data recovery software.

How to Resolve Windows Booting problem due to NTLDR damage?

New Technology Loader (NTLDR). NTLDR is a special program which finds application in loading other software and files that are required to start the computer. Damage of NTLDR can cause inaccessibility with the computer and you receive various error messages, such as:

“NTLDR is Missing. Press any key to restart.”

“Boot: Couldn't find NTLDR. Please insert another disk.”

or

“NTLDR is missing. Press Ctrl Alt Del to Restart.”

Prompting of these error massage signifies error in or loss of your critical data.

However, this problem can be resolved by conducting certain resolution operations. If the computer still denies accessibility, third party Windows data recovery software can recover back your data.

Causes:

The damage of NTLDR are caused due to some of the prominent reasons that include the following:

• Booting the computer from a non-bootable source

• When BIOS does not contain proper setup of hard disk drive

• Corruption of NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM file or corruption of either of them

• boot.ini file is not properly configured

• Addition of new hard disk drive

• Corruption in boot sector or master boot record (MBR)

• Corruption in Windows 2000 or Windows XP

• Loose or Faulty IDE/EIDE hard disk drive cable

Resolution:

The problem with NTLDR is in many cases tackled by restarting the computer. However, this is just the preliminary step to handle such problem. Some of the resolution methods for the above described reasons of NTLDR damage are as follows:

Booting the computer from a non-bootable source

Check that there is no floppy disk or CD in the computer, other than the one used to boot the computer. Also make sure that that no memory stick is inside the computer. Further, disconnect all external storage media such as USB drives, cameras, ipods, and iphones from the computer.

When BIOS does not contain proper setup of hard disk drive

Check that the hard drive is properly setup in the BIOS

Edit boot.ini file is not properly configured

1. Edit boot.ini file on root directory of the hard disk

2. Ensure that boot.ini is pointing to the correct location of Windows operating system

3. Check that the partitions are properly defined

Addition of new hard disk drive

Make sure that the new hard disk drive is a blank drive.

Corruption in boot sector or master boot record (MBR)

If the MBR is corrupt, run the commands; 'fixboot' and 'fixmbr' through the Microsoft Windows Recovery console.

Corruption in Windows 2000 or Windows XP

Reinstall Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

The above described approaches can resettle the problems of NTLDR damage. Any how, the problem may persist even after following the above described steps. In such conditions, you can approach for third party windows data recovery software.

Linux Data Recovery after Hard drive formatting

Many Linux users take hard drive of the computer as a permanent storage And hence never bothers about taking backup of all their critical data. However, apart from strong firewalls, anti-virus software and other techniques through which data safety can be taken care of, no one can say that data stored in its system is fool proof.

Therefore, incidences like file system File corruption, malware infection or etc. can corrupt you machine any time its quiet often seen that the major cause of data loss is due to human error and that part we can not do much about it happens that we may some times knowingly or unknowingly format our hard drive Leaving us in the situation where all our critical data is lost Under all such tragic instances of data loss, Linux Drive recovery can help you recover your lost data back.

Data loss due to hard drive formatting is simply the most avoidable reasons and many of us are unaware of the fact that the data never gets permanently lost until that is being overwritten. Hence, with the help of any  Formatted Linux data recovery software, you have an good chance of recovering all the formatted data from your Linux machine.

There can be a number of reasons/situations, which may Compel you to format your hard drive. Below mentioned ones are some of the prominent ones:

1) OS crash and inaccessibility leaves no other means except formatting and fresh installation etc.
2) Unable to solve the file system corruption.
3) Accidental formatting while rectifying problems with Linux system disk.
4) Formatting of the system while operating system up-gradation.
5) Deletion of necessary system files propelling to format and re-installation of OS.

After formatting, all your data gets erased from the drive and if you have taken any backup in the past, you can be able to restore the data from the valid backup. However, if there is no valid backup available or due to any unresolved reason, you failed to restore the data from the backup, you have to try running any data recovery Linux data recovery tool to recover your seemingly lost data back.

How to recover linux data after disk corruption

In a practical instance of the  Linux drive structure corruption in Fedora Linux OS, you may encounter the below error message when you reboot the Fedora operating system-based computer after it freezes at during boot up process-

"EXT-fs: dm-0: couldn't mount because of unsupported optional features (2000200)
mount error 22 - mounting ext 3"

Subsequent to the above error message, you might get further error message that says-

"kernel panic - not syncing: Attempting to kill init."

After this error message, Fedora OS cannot detect and access Linux hard disk volumes when you try to perform Linux disk recovery using Linux Rescue CD. When you try mounting the disk manually, it says that the disk has invalid arguments and thus it cannot be mounted.

Root cause of the problem

As mentioned above, this problem happens due to corruption to the logical structure of the Linux hard disk. It may also occur if drive data structures, like Superblock and file system, are damaged. Corruption might be the outcome of virus infection, OS malfunction, and other similar reasons.

Solution

Use any of the below Linux recovery solutions to sort out this problem-
Boot your Linux Machine using the Rescue CD and then run pvscan command for checking the logical volumes.
Run fsck -C -y /dev/hdXX command.

If none of the above file recovery methods work, you are required to format the disk and reinstall OS.
 

Although, formatting can fix all disk related problems, but it also cause serious data loss. In such situations, Linux File recovery software are required to recover lost data after formatting.

Linux File system Error and Recovery Option Available

Like other computer OS, Linux also uses a number of data structures to perform various operations. These data structures include root directory. Superblock is one of the most significant data structures, which contains all the basic information, such as file system type, status (either mounted or un-mounted), and size. In some situations, this data structure may get damaged and Linux cannot access data from hard drive. It causes critical data loss situations and requires Linux file recovery to be fixed.

Linux file system manager accesses the Superblock information for maintaining it. All the parameters, like size, defined in the Superblock must match the actual parameters; otherwise you may face critical problems. For example, if the size of is different in Superblock as compared to actual size, then disk is reported as corrupt and you run across critical data loss problem and need to opt for Linux recovery solutions.

As a practical instance of this issue, you might get the below error message when you try to access data from a Linux OS based hard drive-

"The filesystem size (according to the superblock) is xxx

The physical size of the device is yyy."

The above error most frequently occurs when you try to repair Linux files using the fsck command. The above error suggests that the file system size is mismatching and the partition is damaged.

Cause

You may come across this behavior in Linux OS, if any of the below conditions are true-

An application or the system is attempting to write data on hard drive where Superblock is located. The problem occurs when Linux OS prevents the application from writing.

The hard drive volume is damaged.

The file system, partition table, or the Superblock is damaged.

To perform data recovery Linux in such cases, you need to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Resolution

Try out the below Linux data recovery methods to work around this behavior-

Boot your system in the single-user mode.

Run unmount -a command to unmount disk volumes.

Try repairing the Linux volumes using fsck command.

Resize Linux volumes with the help of resize2fs command.

In case the above Ext2 recovery solutions fail to work, opt for Linux data recovery software to extract your precious data. Such Linux recovery applications perform absolute data recovery Linux using advanced scanning techniques. They offer safe and easy Ext3 recovery.