Btrfs devel - Mar 2011 - Btrfs system won't start on Ubuntu (relationship problems...)

Hi,

I installed Ubuntu on my girlfriend''s laptop using btrfs as a
filesystem. But a few weeks ago something happened: the system
wouldn''t boot and always show these messages:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122119.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122125.jpg
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122143.jpg

The problem is that there is now way to mount that partition and all
the analysis tools don''t give any information. I know there is no fsck
for btrfs, so it is just a shame for me, because my girlfriend is
really angry at me for this.

Foremost is not able to recover files neither.

Could anyone help me on this? I don''t mind if the system does not
start, but I need to recover some files (pictures basically).

Thanks!

Pau
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Pau Iranzo wrote:
> I installed Ubuntu on my girlfriend''s laptop using btrfs as a
> filesystem. But a few weeks ago something happened: the system
> wouldn''t boot and always show these messages:
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122119.jpg
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122125.jpg
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122143.jpg
The hard drive is broken.

This would have happened at the same point in time regardless of
btrfs or not, and regardless of Linux or not.

> The problem is that there is now way to mount that partition and all
> the analysis tools don''t give any information. I know there is no
fsck
> for btrfs, so it is just a shame for me, because my girlfriend is
> really angry at me for this.
> 
> Foremost is not able to recover files neither.
> 
> Could anyone help me on this? I don''t mind if the system does not
> start, but I need to recover some files (pictures basically).
Take out the disk from the machine. Get a USB-adapter. Prepare for
running dd_rescue on another Linux system. Hook up broken drive. Run
dd_rescue to make a copy of the disk that you can work on. Disconnect
broken drive. Every second it is powered the chance to recover data
decreases. Only power it up when you must, and when you are well
prepared to extract complete contents from the disk. Try to analyze
how the btrfs is broken. Try to fix it. Mount and recover data.

Meanwhile buy new hard drive and reinstall a system so your friend
has a working computer.


//Peter
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On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 5:32 AM, Pau Iranzo <paulists@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I installed Ubuntu on my girlfriend''s laptop using btrfs as a
> filesystem. But a few weeks ago something happened: the system
> wouldn''t boot and always show these messages:
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122119.jpg
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122125.jpg
> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122143.jpg
>
> The problem is that there is now way to mount that partition and all
> the analysis tools don''t give any information. I know there is no
fsck
> for btrfs, so it is just a shame for me, because my girlfriend is
> really angry at me for this.
>
> Foremost is not able to recover files neither.
>
> Could anyone help me on this? I don''t mind if the system does not
> start, but I need to recover some files (pictures basically).
Looks like the drive is shot, although I suppose it could be a bad cable.

What I''d probably do is run a dd_rescue from a livecd or another
system to a second drive, and then try mounting it via "mount
/path/to/file /mnt -o loop -t btrfs" or some such.  Once you have the
image it should be possible to get something back even if it doesn''t
mount at that point.

This, in a nutshell, is why I think people are foolish to not have
backups even if they _aren''t_ running a filesystem still under active
development.
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Jérôme Poulin wrote:
> Never plug a defective drive on USB if it is the source .. else
> defective sectors get transferred as good filled with random stuff
Interesting! Which USB chipset(s?) have you seen do this?


//Peter
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Re-send as non-HTML
On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:46 AM, Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se>
wrote:
>
> Pau Iranzo wrote:
> > I installed Ubuntu on my girlfriend''s laptop using btrfs as a
> > filesystem. But a few weeks ago something happened: the system
> > wouldn''t boot and always show these messages:
> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122119.jpg
> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122125.jpg
> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122143.jpg
>
> The hard drive is broken.
>
> This would have happened at the same point in time regardless of
> btrfs or not, and regardless of Linux or not.
>
Just to confirm, the hard disk is broken, I guess you installed Ubuntu
first because Windows was getting slow, it probably was the hard disk
at this time.
>
> > The problem is that there is now way to mount that partition and all
> > the analysis tools don''t give any information. I know there
is no fsck
> > for btrfs, so it is just a shame for me, because my girlfriend is
> > really angry at me for this.
> >
> > Foremost is not able to recover files neither.
> >
> > Could anyone help me on this? I don''t mind if the system does
not
> > start, but I need to recover some files (pictures basically).
>
> Take out the disk from the machine. Get a USB-adapter. Prepare for
> running dd_rescue on another Linux system. Hook up broken drive. Run
> dd_rescue to make a copy of the disk that you can work on. Disconnect
> broken drive. Every second it is powered the chance to recover data
> decreases. Only power it up when you must, and when you are well
> prepared to extract complete contents from the disk. Try to analyze
> how the btrfs is broken. Try to fix it. Mount and recover data.
>
> Meanwhile buy new hard drive and reinstall a system so your friend
> has a working computer.
>
Never plug a defective drive on USB if it is the source, only the
destination can be plugged USB, else defective sectors get transferred
as good filled with random stuff and it only makes data recovery
worst, also, there is ddrescue and dd_rescue, you try both, just make
sure you save a logfile, I don''t remember if dd_rescue has one.
>
> //Peter
>
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On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se>
wrote:
>
> Jérôme Poulin wrote:
> > Never plug a defective drive on USB if it is the source .. else
> > defective sectors get transferred as good filled with random stuff
>
> Interesting! Which USB chipset(s?) have you seen do this?
>
Those I tried and confirmed not working are
CablesToGo: http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=941&sku=30504
StarTech: http://us.startech.com/product/USB2SATAIDE-USB-20-to-IDE-or-SATA-Adapter-Cable

I don''t have them handy but I can confirm you the chipset if
you''d like.

As a sidenote USB converters don''t have low level access to the disk
so it also makes smartctl and stuff not working at all.
I was not able to find any USB converter which was working correctly
using ddrescue and a defective disk yet.
>
> //Peter
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Jérôme Poulin wrote:
> Those I tried and confirmed not working are
> CablesToGo: http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=941&sku=30504
>
StarTech: http://us.startech.com/product/USB2SATAIDE-USB-20-to-IDE-or-SATA-Adapter-Cable
> 
> I don''t have them handy but I can confirm you the chipset if
you''d like.
Please do! I''m very interested to know which ones to avoid.

> As a sidenote USB converters don''t have low level access to the
disk
Actually they do. The disk plugs in to the controller chip, and ATA
commands are sent over USB. (See the Mass Storage USB Device Class
Specification at usb.org.)

> so it also makes smartctl and stuff not working at all.
Maybe some ATA commands are eaten along the way, again possibly only
with particular chipsets. It would be interesting to gather a bit of
information on this as well.


//Peter
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Thanks guys.

Well, first of all, it''s been years since I last installed Windows on
one of my computers (2003 maybe?). The thing was that I was excited
about btrfs and I had used it since it was on the partition manager on
the Ubuntu installer. I hadn''t had any problems with btrfs on my
computers until this. Then I discovered there was no fsck :(

I''ll try what you told me.

Thanks!!!

2011/3/13 Jérôme Poulin <jeromepoulin@gmail.com>:
> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 12:30 PM, Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se> wrote:
>>
>> Jérôme Poulin wrote:
>> > Never plug a defective drive on USB if it is the source .. else
>> > defective sectors get transferred as good filled with random stuff
>>
>> Interesting! Which USB chipset(s?) have you seen do this?
>>
> Those I tried and confirmed not working are
> CablesToGo: http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=941&sku=30504
>
StarTech: http://us.startech.com/product/USB2SATAIDE-USB-20-to-IDE-or-SATA-Adapter-Cable
> I don''t have them handy but I can confirm you the chipset if
you''d like.
> As a sidenote USB converters don''t have low level access to the
disk so it
> also makes smartctl and stuff not working at all.
> I was not able to find any USB converter which was working correctly using
> ddrescue and a defective disk yet.
>>
>> //Peter
>
>
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Pau Iranzo wrote:
> it''s been years since I last installed Windows on one of my
> computers (2003 maybe?).
Again, Windows or not is irrelevant.

The hard drive is physically broken and that would have happened at
the same point in time regardless of anything that software has been
doing.

> The thing was that I was excited about btrfs and I had used it
> since it was on the partition manager on the Ubuntu installer. I
> hadn''t had any problems with btrfs on my computers until this.
Then
> I discovered there was no fsck :(
As I explained already, just powering up the disk reduces your
chances of recovering data, and reading lots of data from the disk
even more so, so the fact that there is no fsck that you could have
run on the disk is actually in your case an advantage. I hope this
was already absolutely clear.

> I''ll try what you told me.
Expect to spend some time on data recovery. Make sure to have enough
free space for a dd_rescue copy of the broken disk.

In order to avoid the risk of hitting one of those misbehaving USB
adapters better try to hook up the disk to a mainboard controller.


//Peter
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On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Jérôme Poulin <jeromepoulin@gmail.com>
wrote:
> As a sidenote USB converters don''t have low level access to the
disk
> so it also makes smartctl and stuff not working at all.
That depends on the disk and controller.
I had an old USB controller with PATA disk, smartctl was unusable on it.
Smartctl was perfectly usable on another one with SATA disk in it.
> I was not able to find any USB converter which was working correctly
> using ddrescue and a defective disk yet.
That would also depend on kernel version. My disk was having some bad
sectors, and with an old version of Ubuntu (forgot which one exactly)
running e2fsck -c (to check the badblocks) failed because USB resets
keep happening and the disk was finally undetected, while on Ubuntu
maverick (kernel 2.6.35) the check was completed and badblocks marked
correctly. dd_rescue should also work, and you might want to use a
bigger value for "-B" so it would be faster.

-- 
Fajar
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On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Jérôme Poulin <jeromepoulin@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Re-send as non-HTML
> On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 7:46 AM, Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se> wrote:
>>
>> Pau Iranzo wrote:
>> > I installed Ubuntu on my girlfriend''s laptop using btrfs
as a
>> > filesystem. But a few weeks ago something happened: the system
>> > wouldn''t boot and always show these messages:
>> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122119.jpg
>> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122125.jpg
>> > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/120126/btrfs/IMG_20110313_122143.jpg
>>
>> The hard drive is broken.
>>
>> This would have happened at the same point in time regardless of
>> btrfs or not, and regardless of Linux or not.
>>
>
> Just to confirm, the hard disk is broken, I guess you installed Ubuntu
> first because Windows was getting slow, it probably was the hard disk
> at this time.
>
>>
>> > The problem is that there is now way to mount that partition and
all
>> > the analysis tools don''t give any information. I know
there is no fsck
>> > for btrfs, so it is just a shame for me, because my girlfriend is
>> > really angry at me for this.
>> >
>> > Foremost is not able to recover files neither.
>> >
>> > Could anyone help me on this? I don''t mind if the system
does not
>> > start, but I need to recover some files (pictures basically).
>>
>> Take out the disk from the machine. Get a USB-adapter. Prepare for
>> running dd_rescue on another Linux system. Hook up broken drive. Run
>> dd_rescue to make a copy of the disk that you can work on. Disconnect
>> broken drive. Every second it is powered the chance to recover data
>> decreases. Only power it up when you must, and when you are well
>> prepared to extract complete contents from the disk. Try to analyze
>> how the btrfs is broken. Try to fix it. Mount and recover data.
>>
>> Meanwhile buy new hard drive and reinstall a system so your friend
>> has a working computer.
>>
>
> Never plug a defective drive on USB if it is the source, only the
> destination can be plugged USB, else defective sectors get transferred
> as good filled with random stuff and it only makes data recovery
> worst, also, there is ddrescue and dd_rescue, you try both, just make
> sure you save a logfile, I don''t remember if dd_rescue has one.
I would highly recommend using GNU ddrescue over dd_rescue. The reason
are that 1: I have had great success with GNU ddrescue 2: It appears
from the description of dd_rescue :
http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/ that it attempts smaller
block sizes on the *first* pass, which could further decrease the
lifespan of the drive before getting all of the blocks which can be
read with a larger block size. For information about GNU ddrescue''s
algorithm for getting as much data as possible from a failing drive
see "info ddrescue".

-- 
Jordan Uggla (Jordan_U on irc.freenode.net)
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