In Linux and other Unix-like operating system, you can detect and repair hard drive errors using fsck command. This command runs in 5 phases. In the first phase, it checks data blocks and their size while in second phase file and directory pathnames are checked. In the remaining three phases, the connectivity, file reference counts and the cylinder groups are examined respectively.

If in the second phase, fsck disk checking process fails, you might come across critical disk corruption situations and possibly data loss. In such circumstances, to retrieve lost, missing and inaccessible data from affected hard drive, you need to opt for linux data recovery solutions. The problem may occur due to corrupted or missing iNode entries from Linux hard drive. At this point, you might encounter below error message: “Root iNode is not a directory. Clear?” This behavior of Linux operating system renders all of your critical data on hard drive inaccessible and results into serious data loss situations. In order to salvage data from affected drive, you need to carry out data recovery linux by sorting out the problem.

Root of the issue

This problem occurs due to corruption to the root iNode of your Linux computer. The iNode is a critical data structure of Linux file systems that stores all critical information of the files and directories that are currently stored on the hard drive. The iNode could be referred as a unique number that is assigned to every file and for every file there is a single iNode. In this specific situation, root iNode that is generally the iNode number two has got corrupted. The root iNode is first iNode of Linux file system and represents starting point or root of the file system.

If you select ‘Yes’ in above error message, it would delete parent entry of every iNode from root directory. In such critical situations, you need to recover your lost data through third-party linux recovery software. Such applications employ high-end scanning techniques to methodically scan the entire hard drive and extract all of the lost data from it. The linux data recovery software are quite easy to use as they self-descriptive and interactive user interface with rich graphical support. The tools never alter original data on the hard drive as they have read-only and non-destructive conduct.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is the most effective and comprehensive application for quick, easy and secure recovery. It works well with all major distributions of Linux operating system including Red Hat, Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian. The software recovers data from Ext4, Ext3, Ext2 and ReiserFS file system volumes.