hard disk recovery help needed - Please

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) comp.os.qnx
#1

Hi All:

I have a small (maybe big issue) here and was hoping that somebody can
help me with this. I have 2 physical hard disks on my m/c and for some
reason I could not access the 2nd hard drive and all my stuff in the
2nd hard drive.

I ran the following commands while logged in as root:

  1. mount /dev/hd1 /dev/hd1t77
  2. dinit -h /dev/hd1t77 (I can’t remember whether I used hd1t77 or hd1
    here)
  3. chkfsys -m /dev/hd1t77

Now I can access my 2nd drive but the only things that I see in it are
the .boot, .inodes, .bitmap and 1 more file.

Have I lost everything that was present on my 2nd hard drive or is
there a way to recover what was there before I did the above steps?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. ( I am running QNX 4.24)

Thanks

Qnx newbie

#2

Previously, Qnx newbie wrote in comp.os.qnx:

I ran the following commands while logged in as root:

  1. mount /dev/hd1 /dev/hd1t77
  2. dinit -h /dev/hd1t77 (I can’t remember whether I used hd1t77 or hd1
    here)
  3. chkfsys -m /dev/hd1t77

Most likely you dinit’d /dev/hd1t77. Otherwise you would need to
put your partition back. You also would have gotten a warning
from dinit if you tried “dinit /dev/hd1”.

Now I can access my 2nd drive but the only things that I see in it are
the .boot, .inodes, .bitmap and 1 more file.

Have I lost everything that was present on my 2nd hard drive or is
there a way to recover what was there before I did the above steps?

Well if you haven’t done anything else, it is all most likely still there.
You want to study up on the spatch command. There is a section in the
help under:

QNX 4.25:Configuration and Installation:Disk & File Recovery

that you should look over. The most expeditious way to recover a
dinit’d disk would be to find the directories off the root and
re-link them to the root. There are markers on the disk structures
that should help you find these directories.

The only piece that I can’t find is a utility that will do
the re-linking. You could use spatch to build your own
directory entry, however this will be a relatively difficult
and tedious procedure as you will have to plug in a number
of fields manually.

Mitchell Schoenbrun --------- maschoen@pobox.com

#3

http://www.qnx.com/cgi-bin/print_des.cgi?/usr/free/qnx4/os/utils/disk/+disk_raw.tgz

You may want to take a look at this util. It has an option to scan the disk
looking for directory entries mounts them at the provided mount point.
Make sure you copy the files to a different disk and not the one your trying
to recover.

Jason

Mitchell Schoenbrun <maschoen@pobox.com> wrote:

Previously, Qnx newbie wrote in comp.os.qnx:

I ran the following commands while logged in as root:

  1. mount /dev/hd1 /dev/hd1t77
  2. dinit -h /dev/hd1t77 (I can’t remember whether I used hd1t77 or hd1
    here)
  3. chkfsys -m /dev/hd1t77

Most likely you dinit’d /dev/hd1t77. Otherwise you would need to
put your partition back. You also would have gotten a warning
from dinit if you tried “dinit /dev/hd1”.

Now I can access my 2nd drive but the only things that I see in it are
the .boot, .inodes, .bitmap and 1 more file.

Have I lost everything that was present on my 2nd hard drive or is
there a way to recover what was there before I did the above steps?

Well if you haven’t done anything else, it is all most likely still there.
You want to study up on the spatch command. There is a section in the
help under:

QNX 4.25:Configuration and Installation:Disk & File Recovery

that you should look over. The most expeditious way to recover a
dinit’d disk would be to find the directories off the root and
re-link them to the root. There are markers on the disk structures
that should help you find these directories.

The only piece that I can’t find is a utility that will do
the re-linking. You could use spatch to build your own
directory entry, however this will be a relatively difficult
and tedious procedure as you will have to plug in a number
of fields manually.

Mitchell Schoenbrun --------- > maschoen@pobox.com

#4

Previously, Jason Clarke wrote in comp.os.qnx:

http://www.qnx.com/cgi-bin/print_des.cgi?/usr/free/qnx4/os/utils/disk/+disk_raw.tgz

You may want to take a look at this util. It has an option to scan the disk
looking for directory entries mounts them at the provided mount point.
Make sure you copy the files to a different disk and not the one your trying
to recover.

Jason

Thanks Jason, I forgot about disk_raw.


Mitchell Schoenbrun --------- maschoen@pobox.com