How to repair an ext3 partition after broken resize operation?

Question

I was using gparted to resize a near-terabyte ext3 partition, adding about 40 GB to the left. After nearly 12 hours of moving data (and with 23 more hours estimated to remain) the system hung. Now fsck reports too much illegal data in every inode. How do I fix the FS in this case?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, I think you are quite screwed. If you only messed with the partition table then TestDisk is your best shot, but since you have been resizing (which actually means copying and maybe even deleting), your data is, more or less, corrupted.

If you have a backup from before performing the resize operation, this is a good time to use it. Else, I don't know what you can do, I would ditch the partition and create a new one, saying goodbye to the data inside. A lesson that has to be learned from this is, always be careful with your data. (Of course you should try waiting to see if there is any super great answer that can do better, but don't hold too much hope.)

Now if you really have a backup, an easier way to "resize" is to delete the old partition, create a new one, then restore the data there.

Answer 2

I had the same problem and will post how I solved it for future visitors.

I found some hooks to tackle my problem at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery And I am currently using photorec in the TestDisk package (sudo apt-get install testdisk) after which use photorec /dev/sdXY where X is the device in question and Y is the partition number of that device.

For example, with /dev/sdb3:

sudo fdisk -l
photorec /dev/sdb3 

Look at the numbers the fdisk is giving you for sdb3: the starting and ending numbers. These you need for the next command inside photorec:

rescue startnumber endnumber     (take those from the fdisk details)

Next you have to point to where any recovered files should go. Take a different disk (or at least partition) with enough space. Next a long journey may begin, trying to rescue over 60+ recognized file formats. The filenames will be lost, but in case you are looking for any video shots of your grandchildren or grandparents this is worth the hassle. File size might help with that.

Well another 20+ hours to wait and see if anything is recovered 100 percent.