Artix Linux Forum

Bad superblock on SSD.

27 May 2023, 21:20:09

After a long break from using my laptop or Linux I was on the receiving end of a system hang while clearing my package cache, unwisely I powered off the laptop instead of changing TTY to shutdown in a controlled fashion, this apparently corrupted superblocks on my SSD resulting in me being unable to boot the laptop. I booted up a livedisk and followed this guide to remedy the situation: https://linuxexpresso.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/repair-a-broken-ext4-superblock-in-ubuntu/

However during the last step (sudo e2fsck -b block_number /dev/xxx) I set my laptop aside to do its thing, forgetting that without some adjustment the sleep/hibernate/suspend function on base Artix on my livedisk results in being stuck on a blackscreen. I left it for a few hours hoping it was doing its thing in the background then powered off the laptop. Whether due to that hiccup with the suspend or simply because the fix didn't work correctly things are if anything worse. I still can't boot and on booting into a livedisk I'm now only able to get as far as an fdisk -l to check the disk is mounted before this happens (which makes the drive inaccessible):

Just wanting a bit of advice before I dive back into frantically googling error messages, is this likely to be recoverable or should I just do a fresh install? Heck is the SSD itself possibly stuffed?

Re: Bad superblock on SSD.

Reply #1 – 28 May 2023, 01:27:38

First and most critical step, if there's anything you care enough about want to save on that drive - make a backup image of the affected drive or partition and work on that before you do anything else. Get an external drive enclosure and used drive if you don't already have enough free space around, they are pretty cheap. You can recover files very well using testdisk / photorec, even if they have been deleted so long as they have not been overwritten, the trick is to set it to search for the file types you want to save, then it runs very quickly.
It's quite likely that you might be able to recover the existing file system but typically you will do it wrong before you get it right, hence the need to work on a copy while you find out which approach or online guide works in your particular case.

Re: Bad superblock on SSD.

Reply #2 – 02 June 2023, 15:37:14

Also i'm about to go for OpenZFS on Linux (OZL) Samsung USB SSD's w/in UUID64 encryptions
I also have Samsung NVMe SSD's 980PRO and 970+ myself, both are 1.82TiB per h/w slot, also with UUID64 encrypted OZL pools
UUID means a hex string and 64 means how many hex digits to become such a string
I'm also about to go for ordering an 1.82TiB Samsung USB SSD T7, but when to order? To be soon or to wait for mid July?
As well, Seagate SSD's don't deserve, i had their one 1.82TiB USB SSD unrecoverable, i now no longer order Seagates due to then
Hopes my advices to be good for you and a novice