Best Software for Damaged Ext4 Filesystem

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
What have you guys found to be the best software for handling Ext 4 file systems with a ton (and I mean a ton) of bad sectors in the file table? My gut is to just go with R-Studio, but I've never had one this filesystem with so many bad sectors at the beginning.

Strangely the latter 99% of the drive is perfectly fine.
 

lcoughey

Moderator
When it comes to damaged EXT, I think I have had better results with UFSExplorer. But, an EXT file system with lost iNodes is going to be a very messy recovery, no matter what you use.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. Fortunately they are only looking to get their documents folder back. So if I can at least find that folder in tact, I'll be happy.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Right now I'm attempting to analyze it using Data Extractor to see what it can piece back together. But if I have to scan the whole drive, I'd rather just do it once rather than two or three times.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
It's well over 99% total. Just that all the bad sectors are in the beginning. The reference to the Root folder is completely lost to unreadable sectors.
 

IsoBuster

New member
Doing a bit of Sunday browsing, trying to stay away from the compiler today. I noticed this is a bit of an older post, so maybe this is not relevant anymore, but I just implemented EXT and I found that there are plenty of copies of critical structures. Were they all bad as well ?

Anyway, I intend to release an official beta in 1-2 weeks. Keep an eye on http://www.isobuster.com/news/ (to see IB3.6 beta announced) or subscribe to the newsletter (only used to announce a new version) : http://www.isobuster.com/subscribe.php
Message me if you need something sooner, I'd be happy to send an early beta.
Maybe you can give it a go as well on the problem drive or on the image file you created ?
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Thanks, that's interesting to hear about the implementation of Ext into your software. I managed to find the documents folder uswing R-Studio if I remember correctly. The main structure was a mess, but most of the primary folders were found in the "lost folders" area after a full scan. I just took a scan and some time searching through to make sense of it.
 

Alt-RTT

New member
Jared":1bi3rgvb said:
Thanks, that's interesting to hear about the implementation of Ext into your software. I managed to find the documents folder uswing R-Studio if I remember correctly. The main structure was a mess, but most of the primary folders were found in the "lost folders" area after a full scan. I just took a scan and some time searching through to make sense of it.
Just a tip: To find a required folder in the "lost folders", just sort the files by their extensions, find a file that may belong to it, return to the real file structure, and you appear in the required folder.
 

Jared

Administrator
Staff member
Yes, that's generally the technique I use. Mark off a few dozen digital camera pictures to find the pictures folder, some excel files to find the docs folder, etc.
 
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