Access files from bootable ssd on another machine

Question

I have a raspberry pi (3b), which runs Ubuntu Server on an ssd enclosed in a usb case. A couple days ago it just stopped working (i.e. I get the red led lit up, but can't see terminal when I connect it to a monitor, does not connect on the network. I tried rebooting several times.)

I thought that I would reinstall the OS but I'd like to save some files from the ssd. If I plug it into another machine (which is windows), I only see some boot files for ubuntu (I suppose). Is there a way to read the actual ubuntu filesystem from the ssd without booting from it? (I have a windows machine and WSL2 conveniently available - this would be preferred.)

Thanks!

Answer 1

We don't know the file system from your data partitions, so, unless that is a file system for which drivers exist for Windows, no. (For ext2/3/4 such third-party drivers exist, but to the best of my knowledge not for JFFS, F2FS, XFS, btrfs…, which are all reasonable choices for Linux file systems, and also there's no support for the LVM volume manager.)

Your quickest way forward is almost certainly just getting a USB stick, downloading a live medium image onto it, and booting from that. That way, you can find out which file system you're using.

WSL2 indeed is a way of accessing such volumes, too. But, frankly Microsoft's instructions are long enough that just downloading a media writer, e.g. of fedora Linux and using a live USB medium to access your disk and assess its state is probably easier.