suse linux recovery

[Walter Keating]

Hi Fplks

by mistake a linux machine was trashed
when someone did a bad tar command
something like 'tar -cvf /dev/hda1 filename'

now no files are visible on the machine with 'ls' but we can still view all the files and move them around.

i have a backup on a tape, should I restore /dev from here and reboot, or try fsck
first ?

any ideas are welcome !

[Kodjo Agbenu]

Hello,

Bad luck ! In fact, by typing "tar cvf /dev/hda1 ", you just considered the whole partition /dev/hda1 as if it were a tape device. Depending on the size of , the beginning of that partition now contains the exact contents of that file.

Unless is very small size, I don't think fsck could do anything in this case. The only thing you have to do is to save your data to another location, re-install the system and restore data.

Good luck.

Kodjo