[netCDF #MVA-221747]: Recovering NetCDF files after data loss

First, I suggest you post this to the netcdfgroup mailing list
(address@hidden). That should get you lots of useful
recovery ideas.

Next, you can run the command 'ncdump -k <filename>'
and it will report "unknown file format" if the file is not a netcdf file

Alternatively, If you can write program in C, C++, or python,
you can look at the magic number that exists at the beginning of
every netcdf file. Specifically:
1. look for the first three characters of the file to be "CDF"
    -- that indicates a netcdf-3 file.
2. look for the first four characters of the file to be "\211HDF"
   -- that indicates either a netcdf-4 file.

If you suspect that some of the files have been corrupted, then you can
use Wei-king Liao's netcdf-3 validator program to try to see how the
file was damaged. There may also be an equivalent program provided by the
hdf group for checking netcdf-4 (i.e. HDF5) files.



> 
> we had a massive data loss at our university computational cluster. A
> lot of data was recovered (millions of files), but without filenames and
> folder structure. I am trying to recover simulation data from molecular
> dynamics simulations, generated with the Amber software. The data is
> stored in NetCDF format.
> 
> I was wondering if you could suggest a way to identify any NetCDF files
> among the recovered data.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your help!
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Andreas Tosstorff
> --
> www.proteininteractions.eu
> PIPPI conference
> 
> M.Sc. Andreas Tosstorff
> Lehrstuhl für Pharmazeutische Technologie und Biopharmazie
> Department Pharmazie
> LMU München
> Butenandtstr. 5-13 ( Haus B)
> 81377 München
> Germany
> Tel. +49 (0) 89 2180 77059
> Email : address@hidden
> Homepage : http://www.cup.uni-muenchen.de/pb/aks/winter/
> 
> 

=Dennis Heimbigner
  Unidata


Ticket Details
===================
Ticket ID: MVA-221747
Department: Support netCDF
Priority: Normal
Status: Open
===================
NOTE: All email exchanges with Unidata User Support are recorded in the Unidata 
inquiry tracking system and then made publicly available through the web.  If 
you do not want to have your interactions made available in this way, you must 
let us know in each email you send to us.