In Linux the Ext2 and ext3 file systems space is categorized into blocks, which are further organized block groups. There is particular data structure for each group which defines it and contains valuable information, called group block descriptor. The data structure is assigned to each block groups so as to access it and it also includes inode bitmap, inode table and blocks bitmap location information. The task of Group descriptors is to take consecutive places and collectively form group descriptor table.
If there is a corruption in group descriptors, the whole file system is taken as damaged. Corruption usually results as a result of unexpected system shutdown or virus attack. In case they are corrupt, system may not boot at all or show errors like:
“EXT3-fs error: ext3_check_descriptors / group descriptors corrupted”
To each block group, table of group descriptors is placed just after the copy of superblock. To avoid Linux Data Recovery needs while file system corruption, group descriptors for each block group are duplicated. While normal run, system uses only first copy of group descriptors.
The user can use fsck and go for a repair of file system corruption in such cases. But this command cannot remove errors in case of extensive damage. Then, the last solution remaining with the user is to recreate whole file system by formatting the drive. But prior doing this, the user needs to backup all the required data.
The backup must be complete and in a proper manner. After the completion of backup, the user should check for its status. Also, it is recommended to check if backup contains all required files. However if backup is found to be incomplete or unproductive, we can use Linux Recovery applications to extract lost data.
Linux Data Recovery software scans and recovers lost data from the affected media. These applications carry out Data Recovery using powerful scanning algorithms.
Although are so many applications are available for Linux data recovery but the software provided by the Stellar i.e.; Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is one of the most powerful and easy to use Linux Recovery software. It can be used for ext2, ext3 and ReiserFS file system based disks. This Data Recovery Linux software has graphically rich interface. It offers efficient scanning and safe data restoration options. The application can be used for most of Linux distributions for Linux Data Recovery.