Recovering files from a Fedora 39 system

Ask Fedora
1

Hi All,

I was running Fedora 39 until today evening when I decided to upgrade to Fedora 40. The installer did prompt me to take a backup but I stupidly ignored the warning and went ahead with the upgrade. The upgrade failed and system says it is unable to proceed.

I downloaded a Fedora 40 ISO image, flashed it to a USB drive and then rebooted from the Live CD but I am unable to locate my previous files from within the File Manager. Can somebody tell me how to locate my files from the Fedora 39 world? I have lot of useful code I have written that I hate to lose.

Appreciate the help.

Kind Regards.

2

From the live boot you will need to mount the /home partition where I assume your files are.

You can find out what partitions are in your system with lsblk.
Is your old /home listed?

3 Likes
3

Hello @tm6492 ,
Welcome to :fedora: discussion!
The files on your /home subvolume should be fine and fairly easily accessible. Like @barryascott notes lsblk will show your block devices. You can also use btrfs device scan <device> to get all subvolumes on it. If you installed to one (physical) drive then it would likely be btrfs device scan /dev/sda. This will give the UUID and name of your subvolume that /home is which you need to mount the /home subvolume to get your files.
Honestly, I would first try to boot your previous kernel, from prior to upgrade attempt. Then review the logs to try to see what failed and then try to redo the upgrade.

1 Like
4

Hi Stephen,

Here is the screenshot I have since I logged in via Live USB. I am a Linux newbie who quit Windows after years of frustration. So appreciate any help to recover my data.

Regards,

Screenshot from 2024-05-28 08-27-33
Screenshot from 2024-05-28 08-27-33605Ă—757 838 KB

5

If you need help then provide the information requested.

1 Like
6

Looking at that image the best guess I can make as to where /home would be is /dev /nvme0n1p3 with subvolume “home” and the root file system would probably be on subvolume “root” of the same device. If that guess is correct then it seems likely that /boot would be /dev/nvme0n1p2 and /boot/efi would be /dev/nvme0n1p1

It appears that /dev/sda is your live boot media.

You should really provide us with details of the failure.
What stage failed? Was it during the download? Was it during the reboot?
Did you try to upgrade using the recommended cli process using “dnf system-upgrade” or did you try to upgrade using the software app?

The more details you may provide the easier it is for us to determine the proper solution.

7

The good thing about the Live USB, is you can use the Firefox browser there.

  • Log in to the Forums
  • Provide the information we ask, by simply copy and pasting it here.
  • As others have noted :
8

Hi Barry,

Please see attached the output of the lsblk command you requested. Appreciate your help.

KInd Regards,

Screenshot from 2024-05-28 10-30-21
Screenshot from 2024-05-28 10-30-21571Ă—521 572 KB

1 Like
9

You should be able to mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 like this:

sudo mkdir -p /mnt
sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p3 /mnt

Now look in /mnt are your files there?

1 Like
10

Hi Barry,

Yes I do see the files in the /mnt folder. How do I copy it to Google Drive or a USB device from the /mnt folder?

KInd Regards.

11

You should be able to use Nautilus :

  • nautilus /mnt to navigate to where the files are.
  • Open up Firefox and Log into your Google drive.
  • Drag and Drop.
12

I am happy to report that I have recovered all my data from the hard drive, have installed Fedora 40 and a happy camper.

My sincere thanks to Barry and everybody else in this lovely Fedora community for their timely support.

Kind Regards.