The ext3 file system of Linux operating system is the successor of ext2, and is a journaled file system. Being a journaled system, it keeps track of all the changes that happen to the system before committing it to the main file system. The ext3 file system is also considered to be relatively simpler than other file systems. However, sometimes the ext3 system becomes corrupt and, inaccessible due to various reasons, including human errors, virus infections, power outages, abrupt system shutdown, etc. In such situations, you need to take appropriate corrective measures. However, if you are unable to resolve the issue then you should consider using a third-party Linux data recovery software to perform ext3 recovery.

Consider a scenario wherein you are not able to boot your ext3-based Linux system.

Cause:
The root cause of this problem is that the superblock of the file system has corrupted. The reasons for the superblock corruption could be power failures, virus infections, human errors, etc.
A superblock contains the metadata of the file system that contains all the information such as file system type, size, status, and information of other metadata structures.

Resolution:
To resolve this issue, you need to perform the following steps:
1.Mount the partition under /mnt/sdb3 assuming that corrupted file system is at partition /dev/sdb3.
2.Take an image of the disk by the following command:
dd if=/dev/sdb3 of=/sdb3-backup/image/backup
3.Use the following commands to restore the superblock:
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/xyz
and
e2fsck -b 32768 /dev/xyz
4.Copy the data using the following command:
cd /mnt/sdb3
cp -R /mnt/sdb3/data /sdb3-backup/copy/.

However, if you are unable to rectify the issue using the aforementioned method then you should use a third-party Linux data recovery software. Such read-only tools employ fast yet sophisticated scanning algorithms to recover data from various types of hard disks such as SCSI, SATA, EIDE, IDE, etc. But before buying any recovery software one should make sure that the software will be able to perform recovery. For this one should download the demo version of the software to check for its recovery capability.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is an efficient ext3 recovery software that enables you to recover lost data from Linux systems. Apart from recovery of ext3 file systems, it is able to effectively perform ext2 recovery and ext4 recovery. This Linux data recovery tool is supported by various Linux distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Caldera, Mandrake, Sorcerer, TurboLinux, Slackware, Gentoo, etc. This tool is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.