Need help mounting a partition

[majamer]

Hello,

I had a MAXTOR external drive with two mirrored drives. One drive failed and MAXTOR refused to provide support to restore my data from the other working drive. I'm a Linux newbie, so I'm having problems mounting this drive to my Fedora box.
I mounted all partitions except sda4 and sda6. I get the wrong filesystem error even if I add the -t vfat or whatever option. None worked. Any way to restore my data, or it's over? Since I can see plenty of Linux files and folders in the mountable partitions, I imagine that there's a way to access the data. The MAXTOR drive had my data formatted in FAT32.

Thanks,

Martha

fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 20.5 GB, 20520493056 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2494 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 14 2397 19149480 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 2398 2494 779152+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 32 257008+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 33 64 257040 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 65 96 257040 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 97 60801 487612912+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 97 159 506016 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 160 60801 487106833+ fd Linux raid autodetect

[bingoUV]

It is not clear whether hda is the MAXTOR drive, or sda.

sda4 is not a real partition, it just holds the extended partitions. It does not contain any data of its own. If you recover data from sda5 and sda6, you are done.

sda6 is not FAT but RAID. You will have to use the mdadm command to manage this data. Trying to mount as FAT will not help. Take a backup of the whole partition before trying further if you are not experienced with md.

[majamer]

Thanks for your clarification. SDA is the maxtor drive. HDA is where I installed Linux in order to recover the data from the SDA drive. I'm not at all experienced with Linux RAID. I've found this link: http://www.howtoforge.com/recover_da...lvm_partitions
Is this what I need to do? The MAXTOR drive was installed as RAID 1 but the second hard drive failed and am left with one copy.

Thanks!

Martha

[bingoUV]

I think is not LVM raid, but md raid. I could be wrong. Google for md, mdadm etc.

If it was RAID 1, you have enough information to rebuild the RAID again.

[majamer]

I understand that rebuilding the RAID requires that I get an exactly similar hard drive. Is this the only option or there's another way to recover the data in a RAID partition without having to rebuild the mirror?

[A.Serbinski]

No, you do NOT need an exactly similar disk. You need a new disk that is AT LEAST as LARGE. That means that if you had an 80 GB of one brand, you *might* not be able to use another 80 from another brand, but you COULD use a 100 from another brand.

BTW: what kind of old OS are you using where it still uses /dev/hdx?

[majamer]

I really don't feel comfortable relying on Google to recover my data. If anyone KNOWS how to recover my data please post something useful to help me and others. I installed Linux on a cheap PC with an IDE drive (hda) then I removed the intact SATA drive (sda) from the dead RAID 1 and plugged it along with a blank SATA drive (sdb) to the same PC. Below is the result of fidsk -l. What I need to know is how to have access to my data located in sda6. I can't mount this partition because it's a RAID partition, and I want to know how to rebuild the RAID from sda (where my data is) and sdb (where there's nothing not even partitions) so that I can have a drive that I can mount and have access to my data. If this is too complicated to recover data from a failed RAID1, then I'm sure you agree with me that it's a waste of money and time to use RAID.

Thank you in advance for your help.

M.


fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.9 GB, 40982151168 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4982 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 14 4885 39134340 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 4886 4982 779152+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 32 257008+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 33 64 257040 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 65 96 257040 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 97 60801 487612912+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 97 159 506016 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 160 60801 487106833+ fd Linux raid autodetect

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table