I cannot get further than GRUB except to rescue mode, when I attempt to boot the main Fedora OS it gets stuck on searching for a disk indefinitely. Gets stuck on Job dev-disk-by\<many symbols>.device/start running (1h / no limit) in the console.

I have a Windows partition on same drive, it also doesn’t boot, it’s rescue command prompt (from where you are instructed to open notepad to rescue files) doesn’t “see” any disk but C: and X: (emerg boot).

I tried booting this machine with two live OS USBs: Fedora and SystemRescue. Neither of them list the SSD (or anything but the USB drive FS itself) in lsblk or the file manager.

Due to lack of storage mediums, I haven’t done a backup in a while. How can I rescue the files? Many passwords are also stuck there, in Firefox manager I wasn’t able to sync due to losing access to the 2FA email.

  • mvirts
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    12 hours ago

    I’m a btrfs noob, so I’m skipping any tools that may fix the disk, try those first.

    If the media isn’t dying, try a file carving tool like photorec. Idk if testdisk supports btrfs but it’s worth a try, it’s my go-to for undelete and finding lost partitions.

    Edit: missed most of your post. First you need to check the kernel logs using the dmesg command. Look for errors that may explain why the disk doesn’t show up, especially if it lists scsi or sata in the message.

    Edit again: you may want to check the disk’s self reported heath using “smart” data. Many bios menus show this info, and there are programs to get it on Linux. If there are too many read or write errors, you need to decide how important the data is. Professional recovery can probably get all of your data if you stop using the drive now and send it in. DIY recovery using a file carving tool would work best if you have another disk to make an image of the failing one with. ddrescue would be the tool for the job to create the image. If you don’t have another disk large enough, and the files aren’t super important, you can run file carving on the failing disk directly, but the more you use it the greater chance the disk will corrupt more data.

    • nitroemdash@lemmy.wtfOP
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      9 hours ago

      Latest DMESG logs are several days old, I’m not sure I had this problem back then. Nothing seems to be useful there, standard USB connect/disconnect stuff.

      I enabled S.M.A.R.T. in BIOS, it seems it doesn’t see an issue with the drive (PredictFailure in wmic is FALSE)

      PhotoRec and TestDisk do not see the disk when booted from live media, only the 15GB drive itself and 804MB loop0.

      • mvirts
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        2 hours ago

        Can you post your dmesg output from booting a live USB? Maybe there will be a clue in there.

        How is this ssd connected? Nvme? Sata?

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.works
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        4 hours ago

        When you boot a recovery image does it have any dmesg logs though? You should see something there when you try to mount it

        Does “fdisk -l” show all your partitions on that drive?