Recover your files from a non booting device

Sometimes you may end with a non booting device and you must have your usb partition files back. This page will help recovering them.

Requisites:


 * Windows, MacOS X, or Linux
 * Novacomd driver for your operating system
 * WebOS doctor for your device and operating system version (you must select the correct device or these instructions won't work)
 * Enough space for your backup (at most 7Gb for Pre/Pixi, at most 15Gb for Pre Plus / Pre 2)

If you cannot access your device for whatever reason, you still can recover your files, even if the display is broken or the keyboard doesn't work anymore. You just need to follow this simple steps:

1. Power on your device in Recovery Mode (Pull battery, pull usb cable, press volume up and keep it pressed, insert cable (you'll see a big battery icon), then insert battery (you should see a big usb icon).

2. Open a terminal window (cmd.exe in windows)

3. Type the following in your terminal window:

This two commands will scan the partitions for the volume group that your Pre uses novacom -w run file://usr/sbin/lvm.static -- vgscan --ignorelockingfailure novacom -w run file://usr/sbin/lvm.static -- vgchange -ay --ignorelockingfailure

This command will create a temporary directory to mount your information novacom -w run file://bin/mkdir -- -p /tmp/media

This command will actually mount your information in said directory novacom -w run file://bin/mount -- /dev/mapper/store-media /tmp/media

This command will show you the files that were on the root directory of your device's usb partition novacom -w run file://bin/ls -- /tmp/media

At this moment you should see a listing on your terminal window showing the files that should have been in the usb portion of your device. Confirm they're the correct ones, and continue with..

This command will compress your files, send over novacom and write them on your computer under the file media.tgz novacom -w run file://bin/tar -- -C /tmp/media/ --totals -czf -. > media.tgz

There you go, you have a file called media.tgz on your home directory. This file can be opened with most archive managers.