[Novalug] ext3 filesystems and undelete #@%$

Bonnie Dalzell bdalzell@qis.net
Sun Sep 6 19:29:17 EDT 2009


I have been using Linux for 5 years or so now and I finally did it. I 
deleteted something with gnome-commander (which does not use the recycle 
bin) that I really really did not want to delete. I did it by thinking I 
was deleting a broken link to a folder when actually the darned thing 
apparently was an actual link. I stopped the folder deletion with a cancel 
quickly enough that all I lost were some files in the folder - not the 
subfolders. Grrrrrrrrrrrr

So I have had an educational day searching the internet about undelete 
with Linux. I have been told that had I used a EXT2 file system undelete 
would be easier.

I turned off the computer fairly soon after the delete incident - but not 
perhaps soon enough. I went to Staples and purchased a 500GB drive 
and mounted it and made some large linux partitions on it and then made a 
disk image backup of my home partition to one of these so I could try 
using tools run by Sleuthkit to recover the 12 files I dumped.

I have also tried running something called strings on the diskimage (the 
files were ascii text) and I have made this 10GB text file which gvim 
opens but does not seem to be able to actually search.

So far all I can say is - windows actually has some undelete 
utilities and dos had undelete utilities and my beloved Amiga has 
diskdoctor and the Mac has some undelete utilities around so WHY 
DOESN'T LINUX have some undelete utilities for ext3?

All of this happened in part because I was trying to clean up a 
harddrive in preparation to actually setting up somesort of 
regular backup with sbackup of course. I had a lot of duplicated files and 
I was going through things trying to open up some space so I could make a 
backup partition.

Now had I known that I could buy a 500GB harddrive at staples for only 
$80 I might have set up the back up first and then done the file 
consolidatiing. But you know what they say about hindsight....

Grrrrrrr.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
mail:5100 Hydes Rd PO Box 60, Hydes,MD,USA 21082-0060|EMAIL:bdalzell@qis.net
Freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
HOME www.batw.net    ART bdalzellart.batw.net  BUSINESS www.boardingatwedge.com




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