So try the superblock that is stored at 32768 and see what happens.

Ok Doing that now. Whether it works or not thank you for taking the time to walk me through this.

Ok nothing there, here is this

sudo sfdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 19457 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

Device Boot Start End #cyls #blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 0+ 16214 16215- 130246956 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sda3 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sda4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty


Should I try other ones?

In that case you want sda2 to look like this:

P FreeBSD 16215 0 1 19456 254 63

Where I have removed the size number because I don't know.

Alternatively, if that partition isn't important, just use fdisk to make a brand new sda2 after recovering sda1.

No, partition sda2 is not important at all.

What do you mean "nothing there"? What command - exactly - did you use, and what is the result now?

You ARE mounting the drive to look at it, right?

lol, yes. I should have said the only thing there is the lost and found folder. Sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/disk

What was the EXACT e2fsck command you used???

sudo e2fsck -f -b 32768 /dev/sda1


I just cut and pasted what you mentioned and then added the numbers

Actually, the partition IS recovered. What is not recovered at this point is the directory structure, and you say you already recovered the files. If the alternate superblocks are also clear, then the directory structure on the partition is gone. I don't know of any tools that will rebuild the directory structure by scanning the disk; I don't think this can be done.

If forcing e2fsck to run with an alternate superblock isn't working, then you'll just have to be satisfied with the recovery you already have.

Ok. You might as well try the other superblocks, but it doesn't look promising.

I will give the other superblocks a try. This would have worked yesterday but chances are with the lack of knowledge on my part concerning this, between then and now, I more then likely just messed something up.

Thanks again for walking me through this. I know how hard it is to try and walk someone through something on a forum or a phone when they are new to it. As I said I am going to save this thread for future reference if this ever happens again. All my knowledge from computers comes from hands on experiences. Sometimes the learning process is more then a little painful, lol.


EDIT: To sum this up. If I ever accidentally do a mkswap on a partition, which I will NEVER do again, what you where walking me through would get it back?

I tried other superblocks, with the same result. I am going to consider what I could save a small victory. But....

What I am going to do now is learn EVERYTHING about partitions, file systems, etc. I am not going to let this happen again. So can anyone recommend some good links for me to start at?