UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have here a hard drive from a computer that was damaged, and now the costumer needs the data on the hard drive, but doesn't have any other computer to read data.
I don't really know what file system is on the disk.
How can I find out what file system is on the disk so I can read the data?

Thanks.

filesystems have "magic numbers" associated with the type of filesystem in the superblock. If the disk came from a Linux box the fdisk utility can usually determine the filesystem type for you. Be careful with fdisk, read the manpage first.

It would help if you told us the flavor of unix the disk was originally mounted on.

Hi,

I just know that the drives were in a NCR computer. Don't know anything else.

Thanks

General thoughts:

The are a lot of different NCR computer models. Even a specialist data recovery company will need some background.

NCR Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If the original computer still exists, try to identify the exact model, serial number(s) and date of manufacture. Look at documentation with the computer or application for more clues. Maybe try accounts department records.

Is there backup media in a known backup format?

Is the original computer beyond repair?

You really should ask questions to find out the OS? Red Hat Enterprise? Suse? If they are not technical you can ask some questions like, was there a lizard anywhere?

Then you can figure out it it's ex3 or ReiserFS or whatever...