Linux Data Recovery from failing M.2 NVMe SSD | LVM XFS dd_rescue losetup kpartx

The M.2 SSD in my laptop failed and so I'm going to attempt to recover some of the data off the failed Intel 600P NVMe SSD. I thought this would be a good video to share with you guys so that if you're ever in a situation where you need to recover data off a failed drive, this video would be helpful to you. In my case, the SSD has partitions, and one of them is managed with Linux LVM, and so I have to unravel all of that to get access to my XFS file systems.
I describe the story behind the failed drive, so if you just want to skip ahead to the actual data recovery steps, either jump to a 8:15 for an overview of the process, or jump straight to 13:29 where I begin the process of data recovery.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Story about my failing Intel 600P NVMe M.2 SSD
4:06 - Installing the NVMe M.2 SSD into USB3 adapter
5:07 - I'm no data recovery specialist!
6:56 - Describing my setup for recovery
8:15 - Visual Overview of Data Recovery Process
13:29 - Data Recovery Step 1: Using dd_rescue to create an image of the failing SSD
20:50 - The importance of working on a copy of your image file
22:19 - Data Recovery Step 2: Mapping loop logical device to image file
23:41 - The importance of removing logical volume group name conflicts associated with the original SSD
25:25 - Data Recovery Step 3: Mapping partitions to logical block devices
26:27 - Data Recovery Step 4: Activating the LVM volume group on partition 3
27:21 - Data Recovery Step 5 (last): Mounting the corrupted XFS file systems - SUCCESS!
31:28 - How to undo all the previous steps
32:54 - Wrap-up
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#artofserver #datarecovery #ddrescue #losetup #kpartx

[@SheeplessNW6]

Probably worth pointing out that "dd_rescue" and "ddrescue" are two different tools. They serve the same purpose, and obviously have a lot in common, but the flags are different, which might trip someone up if they have "ddrescue" and think it's the same as the tool used in this video.

[@ArtofServer]

Very good point. Thanks for mentioning that and I'm going to pin this comment at the top.

[@lpseem3770]

I often use dd_rescue to do exact opposite - wipe out as much data, as I could on failed spinning hard drives before send to recycling. It can take days to complete, but it is totally worth it.

[@vinatron8075]

Funny thing I was just working on some data recovery myself! The first instance was a misbehaving flash drive that recovery went easy it was just a problem with windows. Second recovery project still a WIP is recovering data from a Optain model which was setup in a RST pair if you could do a video on this that would be great help if not no worries. Third project is recovering the alternate SE drive on my z12 BC Mainframe which is critical because the drive from the laptop is like the BIOS of the machine thankfully the primary is safe so I have that but I’m going to work on recovering the alternate SE.

[@ArtofServer]

What's going on with the Optane in RST? I believe Linux LVM can understand RST, so I would look at using that if needed.

[@vinatron8075]

@@ArtofServer I replaced the module in a HP laptop the person would like me to try and recover some of their documents but not a big deal if I can’t. It had windows 11 installed on it previously and I couldn’t get it to mount to fix the boot process no matter what I did I couldn’t get windows to mount it in the system. So I replaced it and the client is happy with this so far however they had some documents that they said weren’t extremely important but they would like an attempt at removing them. So I got it to show up in Linux but it shows up as a single device and parted shows it as a RST member and I am unable to mount it and inspect the data further. That’s where I’m stuck not sure if the system has to support RST because I put it in an HP workstation z230 that doesn’t appear to have RST in the UEFI. This is kinda the current state of things any details you would like I can get when I get back on campus.

[@billycroan2336]

you can make your losetup readonly as well to protect the image file

[@ArtofServer]

good point. are you binging my channel? :-)

[@billycroan2336]

@@ArtofServer hahaha BUSTED! you have some good stuff, and give me hope I can whip my prehistoric LSI cards into shape without having to drive into the datacenter

[@TheTrulyInsane]

How many hard drives do you own and you had no backup?? 😮

[@ArtofServer]

I don't really bother to backup all my laptop computers and I don't leave anything critical on them. anything that is important is always stored on my storage server which gets backed up regularly and in multiple locations.

[@MatthewHowle]

losetup -P / --partscan can replace running "kpartx"

[@ArtofServer]

That's awesome! I didn't know losetup had that option! Thanks for pointing that out!

[@laneromel5667]

Everybody forgets to backup once.

[@asmith5488]

If you have data ona magic FAILED situation I would be interested ( failed means tada no errors 15 different enclosures and not being recognized...) 1tb=1gb .... greatest rick ever pulled was making eletronic NVME with CRAP DRIVER only made to work with MICROTRASH AND CRAPPLE SHIT OS