Linux saves the day by recovering data in Windows servers
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| I once ran into a case where there was critical data on a disk located on
| an external storage (SAN) device. A Microsoft utility called chkdsk had
| been run on the storage disk while it was connected to a Windows NT
| server. Then they connected the disk to then connected it to a Windows
| 2000 Server and ran the Windows 2000 version of chkdsk. Bottom line:
| Windows could not see the disk. We called in Microsoft engineers to look
| at it, but after a couple of weeks, we gave up and assumed the data was
| irrecoverable. At that time, there was nothing to indicate the data was
| corrupt, but it was most definitely inaccessible.
|
| We puzzled over this for quite awhile and then a Linux admin had an idea.
| Why not hook up a Linux server to the storage array, mount the disk and
| do a block-level copy of the data to another disk? Well, it worked. We
| were able to copy the data to a new disk, configure Windows to see the
| new disk and all the data was intact. I have since used this method to
| recover data at other sites. While the causes differ, the problem is
| the same -- Windows is unable to see a disk that it once put data on.
| Linux, of course, knows nothing about Windows security, so that isn't
| a problem, and doing a block-level copy just copies raw data.
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