So I got the estimate from the recovery company.

The good news: They can recover the files.

The bad news: There will be no directory tree or filenames, just numbered files with extensions.

The worse news: They want a minimum of $1700. That’s if I’m willing to wait weeks. More if I want it sooner, up to five grand$2700.

So have to find another solution. I could probably live without the file names, given that I’m primarily looking for mailboxes, and the virtual Windows machine file.

While I’m waiting to get my disk repaired, I’m trying to get Windows running again as a guest in the machine using VirtualBox. It was working fine until the disk disaster. I have a Windows installation on an SSD, in SATA port 2. But when I try to start the machine, it says no bootable source found. I’d like to tell it /dev/sdc, but there is no way to do so. The manual only talks about pointing to an img file on the host’s hard drive, but not about how to use a physical device (though one would think telling it port 2 would be adequate). This seems like a different procedure than it used to be, when I would have a configuration file telling it where the boot drive was. Has that changed?

[Thursday-afternoon update]

I’m still hoping that my drive will be restored, and that when it does, my virtual Windows installation will work as well, but I’m trying to figure out how to get Windows going in the meantime, because I need it to trade (I’m currently using Patricia’s computer, but she needs it, too). So I thought I’d just install a new machine. Problem is, I don’t have my product key, because it was also in a document on the lost drive. Even though I’ve restored from my notebook from October, and it should be there, I can’t find it. All of the advice I see on line to recover a key requires having the drive that Windows is installed on, so I’m out of luck for that. Do I have any alternative to purchasing another license?

[Bumped]

So I finally got most of the data off the failing drive, and I backed it up to a second new drive. But when I attempt to fix the filesystem I get this:

[root@localhost-live home]

# e2fsck /dev/sdd
e2fsck 1.45.6 (20-Mar-2020)
ext2fs_open2: Bad magic number in super-block
e2fsck: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks…
e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdd

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a valid ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2/ext3/ext4
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
e2fsck -b 8193
or
e2fsck -b 32768

Found a dos partition table in /dev/sdd

**********************************************

Are those the actual superblocks it wants me to try, or just potential examples?

[Update a while later]

OK, when I run it on the partition, instead of the drive, it says the file system is clean.

New problem: When I mount it to /home (where it normally lives on my system), I see nothing in it except lost+found. That’s not encouraging.

[Tuesday-morning update]

For anyone curious, who wants to go through the entrails, I’ve posted the entire session in comments. It remains a mystery to me why none of the drives seem to have data, or how I could have done anything to my source drive that I was trying to rescue.

[Update a few minutes later]

Yes, I clearly screwed the pooch. I accidentally formatted the drive I was trying to rescue.