Cannot access /var/www from Live Session

Question

For some reason Ubuntu won't boot.
I want to recover my files from /var/www/.

When I boot into live session, and go to /var, the /www folder isn't there anymore.

I try using blkid, and the HDD is listed as /dev/sdb1, however when I mount that using sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt, I just get the same as navigating there from Nautilus.

How can I access the files there?

Answer 1

Because a Live CD/USB is not your Ubuntu installation, so the path of /var/www is a path of the Live session.

To reach your SSD/HDD files of your Ubuntu installation graphically, once inside the desktop environment with the "Try Ubuntu" option of Live CD/USB, open a file manager window and click on the hard drive name. Once within the hard drive, navigate to where your files are located, in your case, /var/www.

Or just do the sudo mount /dev/sdxX /mnt/hdd command and go to /mnt/hdd/var/www.

Answer 2

I understand that:

1. You want to retrieve /var/www files from a Computer which doesn't boot.
2. You plugged into that computer a live-boot CD/USB and managed to boot the computer
3. You have no access to the original /var/www folder
4. You tried mounting /dev/sdb1 and you got the same folder structure has you see using Nautilus

It seems like you mounted the live-boot CD/USB into /mnt and hence you didn't manage to access the original /var/www folder.

Suggested Solution:

I'd suggest trying /dev/sda1 which might be the name of the original hard-disk of your computer (which doesn't boot), and look there for the /var/www folder.

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Note: The following command will list all devices on your computer:

sudo fdisk -l

If /dev/sda1 doesn't exists / doesn't contain the folder you are looking for, you can try other devices which will be listed by the above command

Note also: man blkid suggest to use lsblk --fs instead of blkid.