Linux is the UNIX like operating system that uses the Linux kernel of Monolithic type. The OS is being installed on a vast range of tablet computers, mobiles, video game consoles, mainframes, super computers etc. Even, statistics says that as, server OS, LINUX accounts more than 50% of the whole global installations. Also,over the years, Linux operating system has gained fair amount of popularity among the common home users with the Fedora, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE distributions. Moreover, with the egression of smart phones, netbooks etc, which are running on embedded LINUX, the operating system has been more closely used by many users. Though Linux has advanced technology and features, sometimes, some errors lead to data loss or inaccessibility and you need to look for any Linux data recovery software to recover back your valuable data.

In day to day usage of a Linux system, there can be enormous possibility of data loss situations, and you may not always successful in trouble shooting the system to gain access of your data. Hence, if you don't have a valid backup available or failed to restore the data from the backup, Linux recovery is the answer to bring back your data.

Common data loss situations in Linux:

Error – Mount wrong fs type, bad option, bad super block on /dev/hdb2. Error – Too many mounted file systems. File system error. Grub Error 12 – Invalid device requested. Grub Error 17 – Can not mount selected partition.

There can be many such errors leading to the loss or inaccessibility of your Linux data. In such cases, if you are a technical person, then you can trouble shoot at the low-level. You can run the 'fsck' command to detect and fix such error. Prior to running the 'fsck' command, first, you need to go to the single user mode. Then, you have to unmount the file system partition, you are going to work upon, if it is not the root file system. If you don't take enough care to unmount the file system, the 'fsck warns you, such as- 'The file system is mounted, do you want to continue anyway?' Saying yes to the message, may result in the loss of your data, because, at times, 'fsck' writes directly to the disk.

If you need to check the root file system based partition, you have to boot the system in single user mode and run the 'fsck' with a '-b' option so that it will run in a read-only mode. Also, the '-b' option directly go to the 'init' and makes an emergency booting while skipping the other start-up scripts.

Sometimes, 'fsck' fails to run or exits without running at all. At that time, you need to force run the utility with '-f' option. This is a case of severe corruption and you need to give additional information to 'fsck', such as the size of the alternate superblock or the address of the superblock to fetch the data and fix the error.

However, sometimes, these low-level recovery process is tedious as well as risky with respect to your valuable data. Hence, you can go for any Linux file recovery software, which can recover the data for you safely.