Re: Repository Recovery

On Tue, 3 Jun 2014 20:06:09 +0000
Curtis Stiebler <CStiebler_at_Navegate.com> wrote:
> we had a power flicker

Power flicker, physical hard disk crashes, fires, shit happens every now
and then...

> We do not have a backup of the repository structure

I was once told that the 3 most important tasks for a sysadm is:

1) backup
2) backup
3) backup

It really does seem as if you need a sysadm who takes his job seriously.

> need of recovering the repository and we are looking for some guidance.

First of all, shut down the machine and remove the disk. Every write that
happens to the disk from now on might cause you to lose more data that
otherwise would have been possible to recover.

Next, create an image file of the disk and start working with copies of
that image. Try tools to fix the file system, if those tools are not
enough, try data recovery tools, sometimes called forensics tools.

You could also give this as a work to some professional data recovery
company. That will cost a lot of $$$, but still you can not be sure to
recover all data.

Or, you could simply face the fact that you have lost your repository in
lack of backup and in this case a choice of an untrusty file system. Next
time you might want to choose some kind of journalling file system, but
even with better file systems you should not neglect the need for backup.

Even with the repository lost you probably have not lost all your source.
Most likely you can create a new repository and check in the source you
have checked out in a working copy. The history will be lost, but at least
you have something resembling the last version of your source.

No matter how you solve this it might be a good idea to consider the
advices at http://www.taobackup.com/
Even though those pages are made to sell some software the thoughts are
really worth considering.

regards Henrik
Received on 2014-06-04 09:08:06 CEST