[NCLUG] Hard disk failure

[dobbster]

I've encountered disaster. :-(  Fortunately, it happened to a fairly unimportant
machine.  This system is mainly used for backups and storing mp3s.

Yesterday I installed some Windows-based webcam software on one of my dual-boot
workstations.  This was for a Philips Vesta Pro Scan (USB) webcam.  I purchased
this particular model because it's on the Linux/USB compatibility list, although
I haven't tried that yet.

The first time around, the installation program locked the system.  I rebooted
to Win98 (where it ran the obligatory scandisk) and tried again after closing
all of the background programs; now the installation worked and the webcam
functioned perfectly.  In fact, everything in Windows works as well as anything
in Windows can be expected to work.

But now I can't boot to Linux.  I receive a message that says something like:
"Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 03:02".  I've tried various LILO
options, like "linux single", "linux root=", "linux read-only", etc., with no
luck.

I booted to a "rescue" disk and ran fdisk; all of the partitions seem to be
there.  When I try to mount /dev/hda1 manually, I get the error "mount: wrong fs
type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda2, or too many mounted file
systems".  When I run fsck.ext2, I get the error "Couldn't find ext2 superblock,
trying backup blocks..." and then  "Bad magic number in superblock while trying
to open /dev/hda2".

I also had an ext2 partition on /dev/hdd2.  I seem to have the same problems
with that one; I can't mount or fsck it.

As far as I can see, nothing in my system CMOS setup has changed.  The machine
is a Gateway P3/550 with a 6.4 GB disk (hda) and hdd a 20 GB (hdd).  hda1 is
vfat, hda2 is ext2, hda3 is swap; hdd1 is vfat, hdd2 is ext2.  Linux is from a
generic Mdk 7.1 workstation distribution with a 2.2.15 kernel, I think.

Any thoughts about what might have gone wrong?  Do I have any hope for recovery?

Thank you,

Mark (dobbster at dobbster.com)