Peter’s Hospital Diary

Pheww! That was a bit of a tense week, but all is (I think) restored and the blog is up and running again with no loss of data!

So what happened?

Well, after I got back and started looking at the computer, I found I was getting some erratic behaviour, nothing serious, but a few error messages, so I ran a file checking program to make sure the disk file system was OK. I use logical volumes on the computer, so checking can be a bit tricky, and I was getting lots of errors reported, so I ran a repair program. Half way through that the computer crashed and would not restart – basically saying that it couldn’t find the operating system! Major panic time as that indicated that the disk was corrupt!

The first thing to do in that situation is STOP DOING ANYTHING as panic measures nearly always make a bad situation worse! After some thought, I did a little careful work on the system – I could see the logical volume, but nothing in it, however I also ran a memory check, and it showed several faults on the memory (which has since been returned under warranty, and is waiting replacement). Meanwhile I found another memory stick, installed that and re-installed the operating system from scratch. I also contacted some data recovery companies to see if they could help. The feeling was ‘yes’ – but at a cost! (Several hundred pounds)

I did have a back up from last May (I had had one from September, but I had recently cleared that to make way for a not-yet-done backup! Grrr!) so all was not lost, but a great deal potentially was at risk (most of Olivia’s recent photographs as well as 5 month’s blog). Before sending the disks off, (there are two, in a mirrored configuration, the idea being that if one disk fails, the other takes over – but no use in this case as both mirrored disks would have the same corrupted files) I took images of them so I could have a play first.

However, the imaged disks didn’t work (for reasons I’m not sure about) but I did discover that I could use one disk in the array – so I could cautiously look at one of the damaged disks. In the meantime I read up about the logical volume system, and noted that one of the error messages said ‘LVM inactive’ meaning that although the ‘container’ that holds the data was there, it wasn’t in use. A glimmer of an idea was that if I could make the logical volume active, I might (just might) get something.

So that is what I did – and there was the data! In principle the only task was to copy it over to the main disk.

In practice it was a bit more involved as I had to re-install and re-configure the webserver and database applications, but that is now complete – and here I am! There is a lot more to do to get the computer back as I like it, but that will take a while and won’t affect the blog. I haven’t looked at everything on the disk yet but the important bits seem OK.

The process hasn’t been helped by the fact that I have had some bug since the weekend. Usual stuff, D&V, and it seems to be doing the rounds. I have felt very tired, and haven’t been eating very well, but I seem to be over the worst now.

So, with a huge sigh of relief, it is onwards and upwards again! (Now – about that backup…)

P.S. Just realised that there was a problem with comments – now fixed!