An older Novell/NetWare server suffered a hard-drive failure after a power outage, and we need to recover as much data as possible. The filesystem appears to be Novell Storage Services (NSS), which is relatively specialized. We are still confirming the exact NetWare version and whether usable backups exist. What tools or procedures are safest for imaging and recovering the partition, pool, or files?
6 Answers
The old NSS recovery documentation mentions a REBUILD utility intended to salvage data from corrupted NSS pools. Treat that as a recovery operation rather than a routine filesystem check: make a complete image first, verify the commands for the exact server version, and expect that some files may remain unrecoverable.
Open Enterprise Server still supports NSS in newer Linux-based deployments, so an appropriate version may be able to recognize and mount the pool. That does not guarantee compatibility with an old NetWare volume, though, and it is best attempted against a clone or image rather than the original disk.
Start by making a sector-by-sector image of the failing disk before attempting any repair. Use a tool such as GNU ddrescue from a rescue environment, work only on the clone, and keep the original untouched. Generic file-carving tools may recover fragments, but they usually will not preserve NSS directories, metadata, permissions, or filenames.
Check backups before doing anything destructive. If a backup exists, the safest route is often to create a virtual or spare NetWare environment and restore into it. If there is no usable backup, a current enterprise recovery company may have specialized NSS and NetWare recovery tools, especially for reconstructing a damaged pool.
PhotoRec or similar carving utilities are worth trying only as a last resort. They can sometimes extract recognizable file contents from an image, but database files and other structured data may be incomplete, and the original folder structure and filenames are unlikely to survive.
If the server still boots, look for the built-in NSS maintenance and recovery utilities. A read-only verification should come first. NSS has commands for deactivating a damaged pool, placing it into maintenance mode, and rebuilding it; the exact syntax depends on the NetWare version. A rebuild can salvage data, but it may also cause additional loss, so do it only after imaging the disk and checking the documentation for that release.
We still need to confirm the exact NetWare version with the person who maintained it, so we will avoid running a rebuild until we have an image and the version-specific instructions.