How to recover data? - Formatted, Fdisk'd, and disklabeled ad1, now ad0 with FreeBSD is messed up

[Mark Kane]

Hi Gary. It turns out that this was a BIOS problem. Somehow after 
running PowerMax, the boot order on the hard drives got switched in the 
BIOS automatically. I changed it back, and FreeBSD booted. Thanks to 
Ruben for that idea.

Thank you very much for your help as well. I will go try to copy the 
data back to the 60GB drive now, and see if I get any DMA errors.

-Mark

Gary W. Swearingen wrote:
> Mark Kane <mark at mkproductions.org> writes:
> 
> 
>>Mounting /dev/ad0s1a showed what was my root partition before. I tried mounting ad0s1b, and it gave "Incorrect Super
>>Block". I went on to guess ad0s1f, mounted it, and it was /usr. Appears like /usr/home/myuser/ exists and my files are
>>there.
> 
> 
> "b" is almost always a swap sub-partition which will have more-or-less
> random data on it and so can be expected to give "Incorrect Super Block".
> But it was smart to try them all.  Glad to hear you found your files.
> 
> 
>>I'm not sure given the info that I have what the proper way to get FreeBSD back up and running again, and to make sure
>>ad1 is ready is.
> 
> 
> Again, if possible (and it sounds like it is now), try not to
> write to ad0 until you get a copy of your data on another medium.
> Use the Fixit CD or buy a 1 GB disk if you have to, and install
> FreeBSD on that and then use it to get the 60GB disk in shape and
> your data back on it.  THEN try to fix ad0.
> 
> You might also consider consolodating your most important data
> so you can back it up on CDs or DVDs.  I bought a used tape
> drive for 10$ and now keep important stuff on several CDs different
> brands and types of CD and 4mm and 8mm tapes.
> 
> 
>>I replied to a reply on the list a few minutes ago saying that if I mount /dev/ad1s1d, it shows the full 55G size and
>>51G avail that is supposed to be the ad1 60GB drive. I'm not sure why that's "d" though.
> 
> 
> It sounded like he decyphered it from your previous msg.
> Your idea of trying to mount them all sounds better.
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