Converting ext3 to ext4 resulting in loss of data?

[Goh Lip]

On Tuesday 10,August,2010 09:52 PM, Fajar Priyanto wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Goh Lip<g.lip at gmx.com>  wrote:
>> Did you convert using these methods?
>> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1147968
>> http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-800318-start-0.html
>> http://biete.com/2009/06/linux/convert-root-ext3-to-ext4-on-ubuntu-karmic/
>>
>> or, most probably, when installing Lucid?
>
> Yes it was during the installation.
> I thought the installation would have been able to do the "conversion"
> from ext3 to ext4.
> I guess there should be a warning. I found several people with similar
> case like mine.
> I'm just hoping the photorec can find as many files as possible.
>

Okay, good luck, hope you get it right. Tyler's suggestion on photorec 
would seem to be the best bet.

Since we're on this subject, I've converted my big data partition (not 
/home) to btrfs from ext4 without clearing out the data beforehand. (Of 
course I tested on a smaller partition with some data first.  :) ) It 
works well and lucid handles it beautifully. (transfers between btrfs 
partitions seem instantaneous). You may want to consider this when you 
sort this out. Again, usual warning applies: btrfs is experimental.

install btrfs-tools
btrfs-convert /dev/sdaX
reboot

Regards - Goh Lip