Originally Posted by linuxnoob

g'day all - i'm looking for help with an ext3 partition. i had a samba share running on oracle unbreakable linux and have lost the whole data partition.

i've tried testdisk but it doesn't seem to be able to recognise the filesystem

i've tried photo recover and retreived some data but not nearly the whole drive.

ditto on the vague results with fdisk.
[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 188019 188051 253319 e4 SpeedStor
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 62656 186401 993984023 98 Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 105611 225119 959953209 7d Unknown
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4 ? 959 1477 4161536 0 Empty
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[root@localhost ~]# e2fsck -n /dev/sdb
e2fsck 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...
e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdb

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

[root@localhost ~]#

[root@localhost ~]# mke2fs -n /dev/sdb
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) n
[root@localhost ~]# mke2fs -n /dev/sdb1
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Could not stat /dev/sdb1 --- No such file or directory

The device apparently does not exist; did you specify it correctly?
[root@localhost ~]# mke2fs -n /dev/sdb
mke2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
/dev/sdb is entire device, not just one partition!
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
Filesystem label=
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
39075840 inodes, 78142806 blocks
3907140 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
2385 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
16384 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616




i'd appreciate any assistance
noooob