Thanks for the congrats and sharing my thrill!
I have one correction to share in step #9: Correction: 10% of 450MB = 45MB = 45000 (not 450000) The 1 MB recovery file for this point has the following parameters: $ dd if/dev/hda3 ibs=1024 skip=115000 count=1k >> /windowsD/recover115000 Later guys, Peter > 9) I began recovering 1 MB size files to edit with Midnight Commander. > How I did this: > Example: if an email was at the 10% mark, this represents 10% of 450 > MB= 45MB = 450000 which I add to where I started recording (in this > case 70000). This give me its location from the start of /dev/hda3. > Therefore when copying the 1 MB image of the 10% email, I change the > parameters and filename so it looks like this: > $ dd if/dev/hda3 ibs=1024 skip=520000 count=1k >> /windowsD/recover52000 On Sat, 2 Aug 2003, Peter E. Williams wrote: > > > > Success!!! > > I thought everyone would be interested how I recovered original emails > from formatted space. > > This is how I did it: > > 1) While doing a full install of SuSE 8.2 on a SuSE 8.1 system, I juggled > a few partitions and became intimately aware of where my old and new data > was located. > 2) I decided that my data could be on one of two locations, in the free > space of my main directory / (/dev/hda1) and my new home directory /home > (/dev/hda3) > 3) I made note of the total size of the free space of the home directory > (900 MB). The total partition size is 970 MB; therefore 70 MB went to all > the files composing the home directory, minus my precious emails) > 3) From root console, I segregated (preventing any copying to it) > /dev/hda3 by unmounting it ($ umount /dev/hda3) > 4) I created two 450 MB image files of the free space of /home, one for > the start and the other for the end of the free space > 5) I created a blank recover file on my backup hard drive using an editor. > Starting out, I called the file recover70 > 6) I copied each 450 MB image file to my backup hard drive (/windowsD) and > called the file /windowsD/recover70 > This is how I did it from console: > $ dd if/dev/hda3 ibs=1024 skip=70000 count=450k >> /windowsD/recover70 > explanation of this: 1024 byte of info is read at a time > Information is only saved after 70 MB of data is read > Information is stopped saving after 450 MB is read > 7) I used Midnight Commander (mc) at console to search this huge file for > keywords, specifically, the email address of the lost emails > 8) Once the email address was located, I kept a handwritten record of its > location by noting the top right corner % number, indicating how far the > email was in the 450 MB file. I would make a note of the % each time I > searched and found something. Before I knew it, I had a list of where the > majority of the emails were located in the free space. > 9) I began recovering 1 MB size files to edit with Midnight Commander. > How I did this: > Example: if an email was at the 10% mark, this represents 10% of 450 > MB= 45MB = 450000 which I add to where I started recording (in this > case 70000). This give me its location from the start of /dev/hda3. > Therefore when copying the 1 MB image of the 10% email, I change the > parameters and filename so it looks like this: > $ dd if/dev/hda3 ibs=1024 skip=520000 count=1k >> /windowsD/recover52000 > > > Believe me, it's painstaking, but I don't mind. The emails are valuable. > > > Whew!!!! > Very happy indeed! > Peter :)))) > >
