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How to recover data from EBS volume showing no partition or filesystem?

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1 answer
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I restored an EBS volume and attached it to a new EC2 instance. When I lsblk, I can see it under the name /dev/nvme1n1. More specifically, the output of lsblk is:
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0         7:0    0   25M  1 loop /snap/amazon-ssm-agent/4046
loop1         7:1    0 55.4M  1 loop /snap/core18/2128
loop2         7:2    0 61.9M  1 loop /snap/core20/1169
loop3         7:3    0 67.3M  1 loop /snap/lxd/21545
loop4         7:4    0 32.5M  1 loop /snap/snapd/13640
loop5         7:5    0 55.5M  1 loop /snap/core18/2246
loop6         7:6    0 67.2M  1 loop /snap/lxd/21835
nvme0n1     259:0    0    8G  0 disk 
└─nvme0n1p1 259:1    0    8G  0 part /
nvme1n1     259:2    0  100G  0 disk
As you can see, nvme1n1 has no partitions. As a result, when I try to mount it on a folder with:
sudo mkdir mount_point
sudo mount /dev/nvme1n1 mount_point/
I get
mount: /home/ubuntu/mount_point: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/nvme1n1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error.
The volume has data inside:
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo file -s /dev/nvme1n1
/dev/nvme1n1: data
` Using sudo mkfs -t xfs /dev/nvme1n1 to create a filesystem is not an option as Amazon states that: > **Warning** > Do not use this command if you're mounting a volume that already has data on it (for example, a volume that was created from a snapshot). Otherwise, you'll format the volume and delete the existing data. Indeed, I tried it with a second dummy EBS snapshot that I recovered, and all I got was a dummy lost+found linux folder . This EBS recovered snapshot has useful data inside. How can I mount it without destroying it? ---
# parted -l /dev/nvme1n1 print
Model: Amazon Elastic Block Store (nvme)
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 8590MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  8590MB  8589MB  primary  ext4         boot


Error: /dev/nvme1n1: unrecognised disk label
Model: Amazon Elastic Block Store (nvme)                                  
Disk /dev/nvme1n1: 107GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: unknown
Disk Flags:
dmesg | grep nvme1n1
[   68.475368] EXT4-fs (nvme1n1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[   96.604971] EXT4-fs (nvme1n1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[  254.674651] EXT4-fs (nvme1n1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
[  256.438712] EXT4-fs (nvme1n1): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem
$ sudo fsck /dev/nvme1n1
fsck from util-linux 2.34
e2fsck 1.45.5 (07-Jan-2020)
ext2fs_open2: Bad magic number in super-block
fsck.ext2: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext2: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/nvme1n1

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
Asked by HelloWorld (1785 rep)
Nov 8, 2021, 12:08 PM
Last activity: May 19, 2025, 08:41 AM