spraymax6
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 2:23 pm

Owncloud Data Extraction

Tue Feb 16, 2016 4:08 pm

Hello All,

I am new to this whole Pi world but enjoying it so far. I was able to get my Owncloud server running pretty well. Then I wanted to mount a USB flash drive to be the place that the data directory is saved to, and subsequently locked my Pi because I guess I messed up something in the FSTAB file. That isn't why I am writing here though, I accepted the error and will try to mount my flash drive first my next go at it.

My question here is, how can I extract the files from the USB flash drive. Ideally I would like to do the following: I would like to make the flashdrive the space where the Owncloud server saves all of the data, then what I would like to do, in the case of a failure of the Rasbian operating system is to be able to pull the flash drive out of the Pi and plug it into my Windows computer, navigate to the data directory and copy and past the data in order to save it. Would this be possible? I am just imagining a scenario again where I actually got the flash drive mounted correctly and started saving important data to the Owncloud server, then for whatever reason, I completely lockout the Pi and have to reinstall the operating system and in the process messing up the data on the flashdrive. If I could take the flashdrive and simply dump the data onto my windows computer I would feel safer in the re installation of the pi environment. Just to be clear I am looking to be able to actually drag and drop files, not make a backup so that later I can upload to the pi and "recover" the server.

Thanks for the suggestions.

cpc464
Posts: 239
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2014 5:10 pm
Contact: Website

Re: Owncloud Data Extraction

Tue Feb 16, 2016 10:54 pm

The file system type on the USB drive will usually be EXT 4. Unfortunately, Windows cannot read EXT 4 file systems. So you will not be able to drag your files out on a Windows machine. You would, however, be able to put the flash drive into any Linux PC, or another Raspberry Pi, then drag and drop your files that way.

The other alternative is to formt the USB as VFAT in the first place. It will then be readable on Windows PCs. However, this route is likely to give issues with file permissions under Owncloud. It is easiest for Owncloud if you make the data destintion (the flash drive in your case) of file system type EXT4.
Unix engineer since 1989

mattmiller
Posts: 2243
Joined: Thu Feb 05, 2015 11:25 pm

Re: Owncloud Data Extraction

Tue Feb 16, 2016 11:29 pm

https://www.paragon-software.com/home/extfs-windows/
Will let you read your data from an ext4 partition
You have to register to get a key but its free and works (definitely for reading files - jury is out on whether its safe to write to an ext4 partition)

Matthew

spraymax6
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 2:23 pm

Re: Owncloud Data Extraction

Wed Feb 17, 2016 3:40 am

Thank you for the advice guys!

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