How to Recover Data after Encountering Error – GRUB 17

Error – GRUB 17: Recover data

The Grand Unified Bootloader or GRUB is a package from GNU that facilitates implementation of multi-boot operation. With GRUB, you can install more than one operating system on your LINUX based computer and have their benefits. GRUB also facilitates viewing various hard drive partitions, repartitioning, modifying partition settings etc. However, sometimes it flashes error messages indicating problems in the hard drive, following which all the data in the data become inaccessible. In such situations, you can execute any data recovery LINUX utility to recover the seemingly lost or inaccessible data back.

You tried to boot your LINUX system and the system became inaccessible after displaying a GRUB error message. The error message, you may have encountered can be read as -

“GRUB Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition”

There can be a number of possible reasons behind the occurrence of the above error message, such as:

Though the requested volume/partition exists, but GRUB fails to recognize the file system.
The boot device set in the file '/etc/fstab' is incorrect.

Note: '/etc/fstab' stores information regarding connected disks as well as their partitions and provides the same to the system, when any drive is mounted.

GRUB has tried to boot a partition with severe corruption or damage to the file system.

Solution:
The following work around may help you resolve the above issues:
If the file '/etc/fstab' has been found with incorrect boot partition, try to edit and provide the correct boot partition.
If the file system has been found to be damaged or corrupted, run the 'fsck' command-line utility to locate and fix the errors.

If both the above option fails to solve the problem, you need to format the drive and make fresh partitions. With partitioning, all your data in the drive gets lost and you have to restore them from an updated backup. In case, you do not have a valid backup, you can still retrieve the formatted data by running any LINUX data recovery software.

These linux data recovery software incorporates many advanced techniques to read the lost entries of the formatted files and successfully recover them back. These software are extremely read-only in nature and with interactive user interfaces, quite easy to use.