Comment 11 for bug 97206

I read about using fsck to repair the superblock, so I unmounted /dev/sdb and got this:

duncan@duncan-desktop:~$ sudo fsck -r -t ext3 /dev/sdb
fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
e2fsck 1.40.8 (13-Mar-2008)
fsck.ext3: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
fsck.ext3: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdb

The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2
filesystem. If the device is valid and it really contains an ext2
filesystem (and not swap or ufs or something else), then the superblock
is corrupt, and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock:
    e2fsck -b 8193 <device>

That didn't help so I've created question #42774