Chris Hayes :: hayes.software

Archived due to substantial ai writing.

As part of an effort to raise the quality of my blog, I'm distancing myself from posts that were partially written by AI. Besides devaluing the rest of the site, I want my site to show my best work and these posts read like a 300-word essay.

I may end up rewriting the partition-backup article at some point as that really is a useful skill.

This post was archived on April 28, 2026.

A few days ago, I encountered a strange issue with my Ubuntu/Windows dual-boot computer. After restarting, I noticed that my Linux partition had been corrupted and was now a “Sun” type partition. I was at a loss and wasn’t sure how to fully recover the partition's filesystem structure.

I decided to take a step back and try to recover my files instead. Here’s how I went about it:

I used the dd command to copy the corrupt partition onto an external SSD for recovery purposes.
I then used mke2fs to search for superblocks backups within the partition (these are essentially scattered throughout the partition).
I used fsck -b to attempt a recovery using a superblock backup.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t recover the full filesystem folder structure. But, after running fsck, I noticed a ton of numbered folders appear in the ext4’s “Lost + Found” folder. I was able to search for folders from there and eventually locate the files I was looking for.

The biggest takeaway from this experience is to make partition table backups. For GPT, use gdisk --backup=backup.txt to backup and gdisk --load-backup=backup.txt to recover. This way, you’ll be able to restore your partition table in the event of a corrupt partition.

I’m glad I was able to recover my files and learn a few new commands along the way. Always remember to keep a backup of your partition table to avoid any potential data loss. 📁

💾 Update 2022-12-05: I've since written a blog post about partition table management here