We have an older Novell server whose hard drive failed after a power outage. We want to recover as much data as possible, but Novell Storage Services (NSS) is fairly specialized and we are unsure which tools or recovery approach are safest. The server may be running NetWare, although we still need to confirm the exact version. What is the best way to image the disk and recover or mount the NSS volume without making the damage worse?
4 Answers
NSS is proprietary, so ordinary partition-recovery software probably will not understand the volume structure. A compatible Open Enterprise Server installation may be able to mount the pool, depending on the NSS and NetWare versions involved. Confirm the exact operating system and NSS version first, and avoid mounting the only copy read-write.
If the data is especially valuable, consider a specialist recovery company with experience handling Novell/NSS volumes. Some older recovery firms developed dedicated tools for Novell volume recovery and may be able to work from a disk image. Check backups first, though—even an old backup restored into a virtual Novell environment is safer than experimenting on the failed disk.
If the server still boots and the storage is readable, use NSS's read-only verification or maintenance options first. A damaged pool can be deactivated and placed into maintenance mode before attempting a rebuild; commands commonly used on NetWare included nss /pooldeactivate=POOLNAME and nss /poolmaintenance=POOLNAME. A pool rebuild may salvage the data it can find, but it can also result in lost files, so do this only after imaging the disk.
Start by making a sector-by-sector image of the failing disk before attempting repairs. A bootable recovery environment with ddrescue is a good choice because it can skip bad sectors and retry them later. Work only on the image, not the original drive. Generic tools such as PhotoRec may recover file contents, but they usually lose filenames, directory structure, and NSS metadata.
The server is probably running NetWare, but we need to check with the person who maintained it. That version information should help determine whether a compatible NSS environment can be built.