How to Recover a Linux Formatted Disk

Hard drive failure is most computer users' greatest fear. If your Linux formatted disk has conked out, don't panic. Fortunately, there are a variety of options available to Linux users experiencing hard drive issues. The open source nature of Linux means that there are freely available applications that can be used to recover entire Linux formatted disks with a few simple commands. Many of these applications seem technical in nature, but the commands used to do a basic recovery are very straight-forward and can be initiated in just a few steps.

Things You'll Need

• ddrescue

Instructions

1. Launch Terminal. This application is the command prompt for Linux. It is usually found under "Applications" and "Accessories," but may be in a different location, depending on your Linux distribution.

2. Install ddrescue, a comprehensive data and disk recovery application designed for Linux, by executing the following command in Terminal (you may need to enter your administrative password to complete this action):
   sudo apt-get install ddrescue

3. Determine the logical name of the hard disk you need to recover by entering the following command in Terminal:
   sudo lshw -C disk

4. Recover the damaged or non-responsive hard disk to another location by entering the following command (where DISK1 is the bad disk and DISK2 is a good disk):
   sudo dd_rescue /dev/DISK1 /dev/DISK2/backup.img

5. Check the disk image for errors once the recovery is complete by executing the following command:
   sudo fsck -y /dev/DISK2/backup.img

6. Restore the disk image to another location from the recovery image by executing the following command:
   sudo dd_rescue /dev/sda2/backup.img /dev/sda1

References

• GNU.org: ddrescue Manual