[Discuss] bad hd super block

[Jeremy Kiffiak]

John,

1.  Are you sure that the partition is formatted with the ext2 filesystem?

2.  You can get a list of available superblock backups by doing

	> sudo mke2fs -n /dev/sdb

At the bottom of the list you should see something like:

	Superblock backups stored on blocks:
	32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208

3.  Restore superblock from one of the backups

	> sudo e2fsck -b block_number /dev/sdb


~ Jeremy


On Dec 18, 2014, at 9:42 AM, John Blomfield <jabfield at shaw.ca> wrote:

> I have a problem with a SATA data drive. My bios will not boot with it installed in my computer. It does not contain the OS only various data partitions. My computer has just a mSata SSD drive and a HD drive. I use the HD for data and the SSD for my OS. If I remove the HD and my computer will boot without problems and when I put the HD in a USB enclosure and plug it in I can access the data partitions with my Dolphin file manager. However if I try to mount it using the "mount" Command line it complains of a bad super block. I have tried running fsck with the following result:
> 
> ban:/home/john # fsck /dev/sdb
> fsck from util-linux 2.23.2
> e2fsck 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
> ext2fs_open2: Bad magic number in super-block
> fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
> fsck.ext2: 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>
> 
> ban:/home/john # e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/sdb
> e2fsck 1.42.8 (20-Jun-2013)
> 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>
> 
> ban:/home/john #
> 
> Has anyone any ideas what to do next? I have all the data backed up so I am tempted to re-partition and re-format the whole drive and replace all the data but will this work and is there a less time consuming method?
> 
> John
> 
> 
> -- 
> John Blomfield
> Delivered by Thunderbird Email on Linux OpenSuse-KDE4
> 
> Old John B's Linux Notes http://www.oldjohnbslinux.wordpress.com
> 
> 
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