Please help me reassemble my RAID5! (long)

[setht]

Hello, all. "New to Linux" - yep. I've been knee-deep in Linux for about a week now. And I've got a RAID5 array that I'd love to mount and get my approx. 700GB of irreplaceable final cut projects, Logic audio projects, DVD Studio Pro projects, screenplays, photos, and other such intellectual property off of in one piece. I'm hoping that the kind and wise among you can give me a few hints - or at least suggest next steps.

In 2005 I built a Rebyte NAS precisely because I didn't want to learn Linux. I think it's JFS; I wish I'd written that down. It has functioned without issue for two years as a file server. It has *NOT* been backed up because, like most idiots, I assumed that a RAID5 array *was* a backup (yes, lesson learned, thankyouverymuch). Last saturday it corrupted some photos while I was browsing them, threw me a whole bunch of file system errors, and then when I rebooted, it wanted a floppy.

Bad news. Long story short, the BIOS on the mobo blew up. So: new motherboard, new CPU, new memory, new power supply, same Promise ATA133 IDE card, same 4 Maxtor 300GB IDE drives.

The Rebyte runs on a Delkin flash card; little IDE dood. It lives on the mobo; the drives live on the Promise. So we hook everything back up, and power on.

I got:

--- rd:4 wd:2 fd:2
disk 0, s:0, o:0, n:0 rd:0 us:1 dev:[dev 00:00]
disk 1, s:0, o:1, n:1 rd:1 us:1 dev:hdf1
disk 2, s:0, o:1, n:2 rd:2 us:1 dev:hdg1
disk 3, s:0, o:0, n:3 rd:3 us:1 dev:[dev 00:00]
raid5: failed to run raid set md0
md: pers->run() failed...
md :do_md_run() returned -22
md: md0 stopped.
md: unbind<hdg1,1>
md: export_rdev(hdg1)
md: unbind<hdf1,0)
md: ... autorun DONE
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 8192 buckets, 64Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 262144 bind 65536)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
ds: no socket drivers loaded!
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-3, errno = 2
VFS: Cannot open root device "303" or 03:03
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:03


...not cool. Not cool at all. Now would be a good time to mention that Rebyte hasn't been supported since, oh, two months after I bought it. They've packed up for parts unknown.

So some theorizing - since it's a LILO linux install, the array (which I think was JFS - wish I'd written that down!) should be addressable by some Linux flavor or other. The thinking was: mount Ubuntu or the like off a LiveCD and try and get things hoppin'.

Well, the Promise Card doesn't like four hard drives and a CD-ROM. No way, no how. So that cooks off any notion of Ubuntu. Fortunately we got Knoppix (KDE 3.5.5, release 2.6.19) up and running off a USB flash drive. So: I've got four drives on my desktop, they won't mount, but they're called hde1, hdf1, hdg1, and hdh1.

Awright. Progress.

This is about where I start gettin' jiggy with the commands that I have only the vaguest understanding of (remember: I went with an embedded Linux appliance so I wouldn't have to make sense of this stuff... that plan turned out well).


~$ sudo mdadm --examine /dev/hde1

/dev/hde1:
Magic : a92b4efc
Version : 00.90.00
UUID : e632930d6:7bfeb139:d5864e82:7e7b2ad7
Creation Time : Thu May 19 08:05:12 2005
Raid Level : raid5
Device Size : 293049600 (279.47 GiB 300.08 GB)
Array Size : 879148800 (838.42 GiB 900.25 GB)
Raid Devices : 4
Total Devices : 4
Preferred Minor 0

Update Time : Sat May 21 10:19:09 2005
State : Clean
Active Devices: 4
Working Devices: 4
Failed Devices: 0
Spare Devices : 0
Checksum : f5f885fc - correct
Events : 0.28

Layout : left-symmetric
Chunk Size : 32k

Number Major Minor RaidDevice State
this 0 33 1 0 active sync /dev/hde1
0 0 33 1 0 active sync /dev/hde1
1 1 33 65 1 active sync /dev/hdf1
2 2 34 1 2 active sync /dev/hdg1
3 3 34 65 3 active sync /dev/hdh1


Hokay. There's a RAID array there; I just can't talk to it. (Anybody see anything else that I, with my severely untrained eye, do not see?)


~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hde1 (or hdf1, or hdg1, or hdh1)

Disk /dev/hde1: 300.0 GB, 300082889728 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36482 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 *512 = 8225280 bytes

Disk /dev/hde1 doesn't contain a valid partition table


"doesn't contain a valid partition table" worries me. I like the sound of it much better than "Unable to mount root fs" but it still isn't reassuring.

~$ sudo fsck /dev/hde1

fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
e2fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
Group descriptors look bad... trying backup blocks...
Superblock has an invalid ext3 journal (inode 8).
Clear<y>? no

fsck.ext3: Illegal inode number while checking ext3 journal for /dev/hde1


I don't know what an invalid ext3 journal is. I *DO* know that I'm not about to clear something what I don't know what it is. But it seems like a problem. How much trouble am I likely to get into by letting it clear it?


~$ sudo fsck /dev/hdf1

fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
e2fsck 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
Couldn't find ext2 superblock, trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdf1

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>

I'm thinking that not being able to be read is because it's not the first drive in the RAID. Am I correct in this thinking?

Didn't want to e2fsck nuthin' without knowing what I was doing. Which I don't. Which is what I'm hoping you wonderful people can help me with.


~$ sudo mount /dev/hde1
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hde1,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslong - try
dmesg | tail or so

~$ dmesg | tail

[drm] Initialized i915 1.5.0 20060119 on minor 0
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready
EXT3-fs error (device hde1): ext3_check_descriptors: Block Bitmap for group 896 not in group (block 130055736)!
EXT3-fs: group descriptors corrupted!
EXT3-fs error (device hde1): ext3_check_descriptors: Block Bitmap for group 896 not in group (block 130055736)!
EXT3-fs: group descriptors corrupted!
EXT3-fs error (device hde1): ext3_check_descriptors: Block Bitmap for group 896 not in group (block 130055736)!
EXT3-fs: group descriptors corrupted!
EXT3-fs error (device hde1): ext3_check_descriptors: Block Bitmap for group 896 not in group (block 130055736)!
EXT3-fs: group descriptors corrupted!

~$ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/hde1

tune2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
Filesystem Volume Name: None
Filesystem UUID: 9b0cdb0b-b18c-45b9-8ba8-10a0c6acf4a5
Filesystem magic number: 0xEF53
Filesystem Revision #: 1 (dynamic_
Filesystem features: has_journal filetype sparse_super large_file
Default mount options: (none)
Filesystem state: clean with errors
Errors behavior: Continue
Filesystem OS type: Linux
Inode Count: 109903872
Block Count: 219787200
Reserved block count: 10989360
Free blocks: 45568125
Free inodes: 31402013
First block: 0
Block size: 4096
Fragment size: 4096
Blocks per group: 32768
Fragments per group: 32768
Inodes per group: 16384
Inode blocks per group: 512
Last mount time: Sat May 21 08:07:54 2005
Last write time: Tue Jun 19 09:22:58 2007
Max count: 14
Maximum mount count: -1
Last checked: Thu May 19 08:05:28 2005
Check interval: 0 (<none>)
Reserved blocks uid: 0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid: 0 (group root)
First inode: 11
Inode size: 128
Journal inode: 8

~$ sudo tune2fs -l /dev/hdf1 ## (or g1, or h1)
tune2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
tune2fs: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/hdf1
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.


...so that's what I know about my array.

QUESTIONS:

1) How much trouble will I get into by clearing the invalid ext3 on hde1? What should I do next if I do that?

2) What will e2fsck -b 8193 <hdf1> or g or h do to my array? Is this a very, very bad idea?

3) What other commands can I run on this sucker to find out more about what's going on?

4) What do I need to do so I can mount the array, suck my data CLEAN OFF of those drives and onto something else, and rebuild it as something else (currently thinking Serverelements Naslite 2 USB, but open to suggestions)?

Any help anybody can offer would be deeply, deeply appreciated. I'm in way over my head; unfortunately I've discovered I"m in way over my friends' heads, too (and a good half dozen of them are sysadmins). I just want my data back. Once I have it I'll go run Ubuntu like a good little boy; please keep me from hurting myself or my data!

Oh, and take your time. I've got to be out out town for a week, so I'm not doing anything to it until next Wednesday. I would *love* to be able to put the silly thing back together again once I get back and get on with my life...

Deepest, sincerest thanks,

Seth

[cbagger01]

I'm probably not the right guy for this job since I don't have a software RAID array at any level, but after a quick google search for "linux software raid repair" it appears that the answer to question #2 in this link might be of some use:

http://www.linux.com/howtos/Software-RAID-0.4x-HOWTO-4.shtml

Hopefully the ckraid utility can help you out.

[greenfly]

Okay so my first bit of advice is step lightly. It looks like you have a good chance of recovering data but you need to be very careful of just running random fsck commands.

What you need to do is rebuild the RAID under Knoppix temporarily and try to recover/fsck/etc the raid device ie /dev/md/0 or /dev/md0, but not the individual partitions that make up that RAID. If you were to actually run a fsck on an individual partition and written superblocks, you would have likely ruined your chances of recovery.

I actually cover how to mount a modern-style software RAID in the update to Knoppix Hacks, but unfortunately it's still in the editing phase now so instead I can at least give you some of the basic steps in the updated software RAID hack so you can mount the drive:


$ sudo modprobe md
$ sudo mdadm --assemble --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1


If these commands finished without error, then if you cat /proc/mdstat you should see a listing for the new md0 array you have assembled (if not come back with the error output and we can go from there). If the array was assembled, then attempt to mount the drive:


$ sudo mkdir /mnt/md0
$ sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0

If the mount command can recognize the filesystem it should be able to automatically mount it without extra options. Otherwise if it complains, again come back with the error. You may have to experiment with --dry-run style fscks (ie ones that show you what they would do, but actually write no changes) to /dev/md0 with the different filesystem fsck tools to see which filesystem it has.

Try some of these and if you run into snags, come back to the thread.

Good Luck.

[setht]

Thanks a bunch, guys. "Step lightly" has been my mantra; I'd rather wait and not have the data for a while than trash it. Which is why I crossed my fingers every time and did my level best to be non-invasive... simply typing "fdisk" makes me nervous as hell...

I'll be back at the server on Wednesday. I will gently, cautiously, slowly apply both of your advice; I'll report back with whatever I find out.

Thanks again for your help!

[setht]

So I tried this:

$ sudo modprobe md

...and it just sorta did it. If I understand the man pages correctly, I'm basically telling the kernel "Prepare for a Software RAID." Yes?

$ sudo mdadm --assemble --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1

Did this, and it says:

mdadm: device 3 in /dev/md0 has wrong state in superbock, but /dev/hdh1 seems ok
mdadm: failed to RUN_ARRAY /dev/md0: Input/output error

...and, in the interests of not getting in deeper than I can handle, I calmly, humbly and appreciatively await further advice.

Thanks, greenfly!

[TopFarmer]

I can not help with the problem but if the data is important and you have the $$$ , would buy new hdd's of same size and do a sector to sector copy from problem hdd's to new hdd.
If you do that, then use the new hdd's for recovery and if an error is made you still have the original hdds to try again.

[setht]

Topfarmer - I've considered that. I haven't done it yet because I don't have a clear gameplan to get there. I have a Pentium III running XP which has IDE, I have this 2.8 GHz Celeron with no OS (and no spare drive to put one on) but which runs Knoppix off a jump drive. I have two macs, neither of which have IDE connectors on them.

The Celeron board has four spare SATA connectors; I'd go SATA if anything. So is there a handy program that runs over Knoppix or Ubuntu or XP that will allow me to do a sector-to-sector clone? If someone can give me some clear instructions as to what to buy and where to get it, I'll probably do that.

[Harry Kuhman]

dd will let you do a sector by sector copy. You don't really need to buy drives with the same size and geometry (which can often be very difficult, particularly for older drives). One thing that you could do that would be only minimally more risky would be to use dd to make sector by sector copies of each raid drive to one or more larger drives. Then go ahead and try to recover from the original drives. If the data on the drives gets mucked up, it can be recovered by again copying with dd from the backups you just made.

[setht]

So, let's say I were to buy 4 500GB SATA seagates (which I'm itching to do). Let's say I plug them into this mainboard. Using DD I would be able to do a sector by sector copy from, say, hdg1 to one of these new drives? And then I would do it with all four of them, so I would have hdi1, hdj1, hdk1 and hdl1?

Could I do it one at a time (since I'm not seeing eight drives being happy in this enclosure)? Say, have one of the 300GBs in there, copy it to one of the 500GBs, put another 300GB in there, copy it to another 500GB, and so on? Then rebuild the RAID using the SATA drives? Or rebuild the raid using the IDE drives?

[Harry Kuhman]

dd can copy device imagess (drives) to files, or back again. So if you got a sata drive large enough to hold more than one hard disk image, then you could copy multiple drive images to files on one disk, and of course, copy those images back to the drives later. If your new drive is larger than one drive but smaller than 2 then geting as many drives as you already have would be the simplest approach. dd is quite flexiable and you could split a drive dump to multiple files, but this does add complexity.

It should be obvious that you only need to attach one ide drive to your sata system at a time to copy it. This will involve a bit more swapping around and system cycling, but the limited ide connectors on many new systems may require this.

Rather than ask more questions about this, I suggest reading the man page for dd and even doing a google search for dd linux (http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=dd+linux&btnG=Google+Search) for more information.

[setht]

Hmmm... One of the reasons I responded was that my understanding, based on what I've been able to find, is somewhat contradictory.

For example, from http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/ddcommand.htm


Using dd you can create backups of an entire harddisk or just a parts of it. This is also usefull to quickly copy installations to similar machines. It will only work on disks that are exactly the same in disk geometry, meaning they have to the same model from the same brand.

full hard disk copy

dd if=/dev/hdx of=/dev/hdy
dd if=/dev/hdx of=/path/to/image
dd if=/dev/hdx | gzip > /path/to/image.gz

Hdx could be hda, hdb etc. In the second example gzip is used to compress the image if it is really just a backup.

So if I understand that, copying a 300GB IDE Maxtor using dd would require me to purchase another set of 300GB IDE Maxtors. Am I mistaken?

Thanks again,

Seth

[Harry Kuhman]

So if I understand that, copying a 300GB IDE Maxtor using dd would require me to purchase another set of 300GB IDE Maxtors. Am I mistaken?
That is correct, you are mistaken. As you pointed out dd if=/dev/hdx of=/path/to/image would make a image of the device hdx (in this cast the 300 gig maxtor) on any partition with enough space to hold it. A 500 gig SATA would hold it nicely, a 750 gig SATA (unfortunately currently more expensive per gigabyte than the 500 gig disks) would hold two. I had not even thought about compression but that very likely would let you store two images on one 500 gig device. dd is very powerful and you could split an image across 2 files on different partitions (requires specifying starting and ending points of each part of the dump). You have lots of options.

[Harry Kuhman]

Let me add that the warning you quoted, "It will only work on disks that are exactly the same in disk geometry, meaning they have to the same model from the same brand." only applies to moving an image between disks and keeping it useable (look at the context it is used it). It should be obvious that the seccond command in the example would never work if the source was a device (entire drive) and the destination was a file on a partition on the same size drive. I your case the drive geometry becomes the same when you put the image back on the same physical drive that it came from, the image on the larger drive is only temporary storage.

[setht]

Harry - PM in effect.

[TopFarmer]

The only thing I can add is be sure what drive is the source and which is the destination or you will have just lost all the data.
When done PMing please post back just what commands and size of hdd's used and any other useful information.

[greenfly]

So I tried this:

$ sudo modprobe md

...and it just sorta did it. If I understand the man pages correctly, I'm basically telling the kernel "Prepare for a Software RAID." Yes?

$ sudo mdadm --assemble --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1

Did this, and it says:

mdadm: device 3 in /dev/md0 has wrong state in superbock, but /dev/hdh1 seems ok
mdadm: failed to RUN_ARRAY /dev/md0: Input/output error

...and, in the interests of not getting in deeper than I can handle, I calmly, humbly and appreciatively await further advice.

Thanks, greenfly!

If I'm reading the error correctly, it seems to be complaining about /dev/hdg1. Since a RAID5 can handle losing a single drive, you can actually rebuild this array in degraded mode. Just replace the partition name with "missing" so if I am correct and /dev/hdg1 is in fact the one with problems, you would type:


$ sudo mdadm --assemble --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdh1 missing


Then see if the device comes up. If so you should be able to mount it. If not come back here with the error.

[setht]

$ sudo mdadm --assemble --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1

Did this, and it says:

mdadm: device 3 in /dev/md0 has wrong state in superbock, but /dev/hdh1 seems ok
mdadm: failed to RUN_ARRAY /dev/md0: Input/output error

$ sudo mdadm --assemble --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdh1 missing

mdadm: device /dev/md0 already active - cannot assemble it

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/md0
$sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

$ sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0 -a

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

$ sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0 -a -t jfs

mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/md0, missing codepage or other error (could this be the IDE device where you in fact use ide-scsi so that sr0 or sda or so is needed?) In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try dmesg | tail or so

$ dmesg | tail

--- rd:4 wd:3
disk 1, o:1, dev:hdf1
disk 2, o:1, dev:hdg1
disk 3, o:1, dev:hdh1
raid5: failed to run raid set md0
md: pers->run() failed...
EFS: 1.0a - http://aeschi.ch.eu.org/efs
EFS: cannot read volume header
EFS: cannot read volume header
JFS: nTxBlock = 7945, nTxLock - 63562

...so then I tried restarting it and doing the "missing" without doing the other stuff first; no dice. Then I tried assembling the array calling other disks "missing" and it still doesn't like "device 3" regardless of the order I type it in.

When I tried to build it from F, G, H and E (in that order) it said "device 3 has wrong state but /hdh1 seems ok" as usual; next:

$ dmesg | tail
raid5: device hdh1 operational as raid disk 3
raid5: device hdg1 operational as raid disk 2
raid5: cannot start dirty degraded array for md0
RAID5 conf printout:
--- rd:4 wd:3
disk 1, o:1, dev:hdf1
disk 2, o:1, dev:hdg1
disk 3, o:1, dev:hdh1
raid5: failed to run raid set md0
md: pers->run() failed...

just for giggles, I tried mounting it as jfs, hfs, and ntfs. At least I got a different error out of ntfs ("the device /dev/md0 doesn't have a valid NTFS. Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a partition? Or the other way around?")

And that's about as far as I can get. Unfortunately I suddenly got a job down in LA so I'm getting on a plane in ten hours. I'll have this lovely little disaster to play with again in about a week... and yet again, I welcome any and all advice.

[greenfly]

...so then I tried restarting it and doing the "missing" without doing the other stuff first; no dice. Then I tried assembling the array calling other disks "missing" and it still doesn't like "device 3" regardless of the order I type it in.

When I tried to build it from F, G, H and E (in that order) it said "device 3 has wrong state but /hdh1 seems ok" as usual; next:


Okay, it's possible that the disk it is complaining about is okay, it's just that some of the superblocks in the array are out of date. Normally I try to avoid "--force" options, but in this case we've tried everything else, and there's a chance that if you tell mdadm to ignore the out-of-sync superblock it might just re-create the array. So, reboot just so that Knoppix is in a fresh state and follow my original instructions, except when you run mdadm this time, add --force to it:


$ sudo mdadm --assemble --force --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1

As always, try that and come back with your results.

[setht]

Okay, it's possible that the disk it is complaining about is okay, it's just that some of the superblocks in the array are out of date. Normally I try to avoid "--force" options, but in this case we've tried everything else, and there's a chance that if you tell mdadm to ignore the out-of-sync superblock it might just re-create the array. So, reboot just so that Knoppix is in a fresh state and follow my original instructions, except when you run mdadm this time, add --force to it:


$ sudo mdadm --assemble --force --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1

As always, try that and come back with your results.

Well, a move to another state, a new job, a new laptop, an ISP blowing up on me (anyone else hosed by the cPanel update last week? Yeah, didn't think so... avoid Sitelutions like the plague) and I can actually get to work trying to get the server working again. It's only been, what? A month and a half?

So. Feeling sassy. Roll the dice, plug it in, type up sudo modprobe md and let 'er rip:


$ sudo mdadm --assemble --force --auto=yes /dev/md0 /dev/hde1 /dev/hdf1 /dev/hdg1 /dev/hdh1

mdadm: /dev/md0 has been started with 3 drives (out of 4).


sudo mkdir /mnt /md0


sudo mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md0

AND THERE IT WAS!!!!! :shock:

So. futzing around in Konquerer, looking at the somewhat shattered file structure. I had created five mounts in there; it appears the NAS (rebyte) had created a few more defaults. The defaults are still there.

One of my shares is up and happy.

The rest of my shares are shoved into a USERS file.

And they're locked.

SO:

1) How do I unlock the permissions on my shattered files so that I can get them the hell off? The stuff that isn't locked up is busily transferring to a spare LaCie Porsche 80GB right now... and I can't tell you guys how overjoyed I am to have them! But the media files (photos, videos, music files) are still locked up. How do I get to 'em?

2) When I fired the computer up the first time (had to shut it down because in transport a SATA cable had managed to rub up against the CPU fan and when the fan came on, it made a horrible racket) it said something about bad blocks and how it was running with only three drives; Does what I've been able to tell you guys tell you enough to determine if one of the drives up and failed or if it just has a bad block? If it up and failed, should I limit the amount of time I have the other drives running in case they decide to fail too?

My data is so close! I feel like I'm on the ragged edge of seeing it again! I'd hate to have it snatched away irrevocably now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...

I owe Greenfly, Harry and this forum in general a tremendous debt. Thanks so much for you help so far - please help me take it over the finish line...

Seth

[cbagger01]

Maybe you cannot get to your files because you do not have the authority to access them.

Type typing:

sudo konqueror &

into a terminal window and see if this session can access your files as "superuser" or root user.

[setht]

Maybe you cannot get to your files because you do not have the authority to access them.

Type typing:

sudo konqueror &

into a terminal window and see if this session can access your files as "superuser" or root user.

Spot on. I knew I didn't have the permissions. The question remaining, of course, is how to get them.

When I type:

sudo konqueror &

I get:


[1] 4037

$ Error: "/var/tmp/kdecache-knoppix" is owned by uid1000 instead of uid 0.
Link points to "/tmp/kdecache-root"
Error: "/tmp/kde-knoppix" is owned by uid1000 instead of uid 0.
Link points to "/tmp/ksocket-root"

So, gentle warriors of obtuse German Linux builds, how would a mac guy like me crack the permissions on my lost+found file in such a way that I can read my data? I hereby promise that once I've got my files off this thing I will trouble you no more with insipid newbie tedium...

Seth

[cbagger01]

The previous command should have launched a Konqueror file manager window that was owned by user "root".

As for the error messages, you could try to change the ownership of the file or of the symbolic links themselves by using the chown command. You will need to type:

sudo su

to become the "root" or superuser in order to make these changes. Here is a man page on the proper usage of the chown command:

http://linux.die.net/man/1/chown

[setht]

The previous command should have launched a Konqueror file manager window that was owned by user "root".

Oh. Yeah. Duh. Once you pointed that out, I stood in the corner and ate paste for a while, then got about my merry business exactly as described.

And now, thanks to all of you, my files are happily ensconced on a mishmash collection of external drives, soon to be combined into a single happy, handy enclosure where I will back up scrupulously, never again assume the safety of RAID just because it's always written in caps, and avoid implementing technologies that I do not fully understand.

You all have my deepest thanks. I'm back in the saddle. If I could buy you all a beer, I most certainly would.

Thanks again,

Seth