Rescuing and recovering your data using rescue mode on Elastic Metal servers

If your Elastic Metal server encounters issues but does not have a hardware failure, you can still recover your data using rescue mode, regardless of whether you are using Windows or Linux.

Before you startLink to this anchor

To complete the actions presented below, you must have:

• A Scaleway account logged into the console
• Created and installed Elastic Metal server

Booting into rescue modeLink to this anchor

1. Follow these instructions to start your server in rescue mode (emergency system) via the Scaleway console.

2. Log into your server using one of the following methods:

   • PuTTY on Windows
   • ssh from a terminal on Linux or macOS.
   Tip

   The rescue mode credentials (username and password) are displayed in your Scaleway console.

Gaining root accessLink to this anchor

By default, you are logged in as a regular user in rescue mode and may not have permission to execute all necessary commands.

1. Switch to the root account by typing the following command and pressing Enter:

   sudo su
   

2. Enter the rescue user password displayed in the Scaleway console and press Enter.

   Tip

   For security reasons, the password will not be visible when typing.

Mounting partitionsLink to this anchor

To access your data, you need to mount your server’s partitions in rescue mode. If this step succeeds, you can likely recover your files.

As the root user, run the following command to mount all partitions:

mountall.sh

The partitions will be mounted in the /mnt directory.

Recovering your dataLink to this anchor

You can recover your data by downloading it directly to your local computer via SFTP.

Backing up data to your personal computer (via SFTP)Link to this anchor

You can use an SFTP client like FileZilla to download data from your server.

Open FileZilla and fill in the following details:

• Host: Your server’s IP address
• Username: Rescue mode username (e.g., em-XXXX)
• Password: Rescue mode password
• Port: 22

Your data will be located in the /mnt, /sda1, or /sda directories. You can download it before reinstalling the server or transferring data to another server.