Recovere data from previous OS

Latest response

Hi,

Is there any way that i can recover the separate partiton from my previous OS where currently i install RHEL 7.1

Let me know, if it's possible.

VC
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Responses

ir. Jan Gerrit Kootstra's picture Guru 6222 points
29 December 2016 9:21 AM

Hi Vadivelan,

It would help us a lot if you mention the current OS and if possible state type of file system used for the RHEL 7.1 installation.

E.G. if the current OS is RHEL 7.x with x >1, this vgscan, lvscan, pvscan and show the output. Based on that output we might be able to advise you.

Kind regards,

Jan Gerrit Kootstra

VC Community Member 25 points
29 December 2016 9:54 AM

Hi,

Current release version is "Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation release 7.1 (Maipo)" and it's a physical and logical partitions.

Below are the o/p:

df -h
Filesystem              Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1                20G   13G  6.4G  66% /
devtmpfs                 32G     0   32G   0% /dev
tmpfs                    32G  1.1M   32G   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                    32G  9.2M   32G   1% /run
tmpfs                    32G     0   32G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/sda2               491G   12G  454G   3% /data
/dev/sda3               246G   35G  199G  15% /export
/dev/sda5                99G   61M   94G   1% /backup

And the previous version of my redhat release is "rhel 6.4 beta" which i Upgraded to rhel 7.1 with fresh new installation on same system.

Let me know, if is there any way where i can retrieve my data.

Thanks in advance !

Robert Krátký's picture Red Hat Guru 3240 points
29 December 2016 10:39 AM

Hi Vadivelan,

When you installed the new OS, did you let Anaconda claim the entire disk, or did you only use the / partition? I see that you have /data, /export, and /backup, which are not normally created by default by the installation program. Did you create those during the installation?

VC Community Member 25 points
29 December 2016 11:08 AM

Hi,

No, I didn't created that, I used PXE for this automated installation and the specific requirement.

R. Hinton's picture Guru 6827 points
29 December 2016 5:06 PM

Please give us more context.
Please evaluate the nature of your reinstallation of the system, and namely the partitions.
It seems your previous OS was RHEL 6.x? is that correct?
If not, what OS was it?
Also, did the PXE installation clobber the disks you wish to recover?
What location(s) did you wish to recover? to add on to what Robert asked, did the PXE install clobber the disks/partitions of what you wish to recover? Please include any other details the questions above do not address. In short, we're wondering what you wish to recover, where it was, and if your reinstallation clobbered the drives. Please thoroughly go over the intent of what Robert and ir. Jan Gerrit Kootstra above asked. Imagine we really don't know about your system and we are in need of information to provide you assistance.

Kind regards

VC Community Member 25 points
30 December 2016 4:45 AM

Hi,

My Previous OS version was rhel 6.4 beta which having the same structural partition (Physical & Logical ; not LVM) and it's on the same disk which I am currently using in Rhel 7.1 with the same partition format(ext 4). IN rhel 6.4, I kept my all data in /data partition and mistakenly which was lost due to the installation of rhel 7.1 on same disk through PXE . I just want to recover my data from /data partition if it's possible.

And Yes, I used PXE for creating extra partitions /data,/export and /backup for some specific need.

Let me know, if any other details require.

R. Hinton's picture Guru 6827 points
30 December 2016 2:55 PM

Chellam, it sounds like your new installation most likely clobbered your /data partition, and may likely have wiped the entire drive.

It is likely your data was clobbered with your PXE kickstart, but examine the kickstart that was used with the PXE kickstart, and note the partitioning directives in that file. This is a long shot but check anyway. This is what Robert was mentioning above, if (by whatever means during install), the partitions you mentioned were created as a part of the install. It sounds like they were, but I'd recommend examining the kickstart file and doing the comparison below... again, this is a long shot.

Check your drive using commands such as fdisk -l and pvdisplay vgdisplay lvdisplay and then spend some time comparing the partitions you find as a result of the commands in this sentence, compared to the outputt of df -PhT and see if by chance there's a partition that exists that is not mounted that might be the one you're looking for (I'd be surprised if it still exists). However, it would be good to examine it just in case.

There are 3rd party recovery tools, however, since it's on the same disk, my unconfirmed suspicion is that it's been clobbered with the PXE kickstart.

ir. Jan Gerrit Kootstra's picture Guru 6222 points
30 December 2016 3:04 PM

Chellam,

check /root/anacondaks.cfg does it contain clearpart --all

if so, all partitions on the internal disks in your server have been removed during installation and recovery of data from the previous Operating System or data disks is removed.

Kind regards,

Jan Gerrit

VC Community Member 25 points
2 January 2017 4:30 AM

Hi,

Thanks for your comment's, I thinks I lost all my previous OS data because of this 'clearpart -all' option which I mentioned in my kickstart file.

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