[mdlug] Recovering damaged EXT2

[Michael Rudas]

--- David McMillan wrote:

> Now, when I try to mount it, I get a "bad superblock"
>  error.  If I try to run fsck or e2fsck, I get
> "the superblock is corrupt" and a suggestion to run
> e2fsck with the "e2fsck -b 8192 <device".  But if I
> try that, I get a "device busy" error message, even
> though the partition is not mounted and no
> other process is accessing that drive.

It sounds like the drive is mechanically pranged.  If the platter spindle
gets bent or pushed to one side, it can often read the partition table but
hang up on the platter when it tries to track across the disc (usually
noisy, though).  It's also possible that the platter has been gouged by the
head--or one of the (multiple) heads has been dislodged and no longer reads
that side of its platter.  The "Device busy" error may be the HD waiting for
the data flow from the missing head.

~~ Michael Rudas
   My home page: http://MRudas.2Ya.com
   My Protopage links: http://TinyURL.com/3wt54n