On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 11:42:36PM -0600, Cheryl Homiak wrote: > I just deleted something I didn't want to delete; won't hurt my system, > just destroyed some important records I was keeping. > *Immediately* unmount the partition holding this data! With "*immediately*" i mean *IMMEDIATELY!*, or better put, RIGHT *NOW*!
An now let's just calm down to be able to think for a minute. > Is there any way to undelete in ext3fs? > Since this is compatible with ext2, ext2 undeletion should be possible. Now you have the possibility to find out yourself and tell us whether this worked or not. There is a comfortable way for undeletion using the GNU Midnight Commander, "/usr/bin/mc". If you have it installed, then start it up, press "F9" and choose "Command | Undelete files (ext2fs only)". Enter the device file name without the leading "/dev/" of the (hopefully unmounted!) partition containing the deleted files and wait a few minutes until the panel contains a listing of deleted files. Depending on size of the partition in question, this can take up a considerable amount of time. So please be patient even if this takes half an hour or even far more. The files in the resulting list don't carry names anymore and the shown names are probably mere inode numbers(?) or similar. Check which file(s) might contain the data in question and copy this file into a directory located on *another* partition. And if you've been able to save your data: Rejoice! > And if there is a way, but you had to have it pre-set up before the > catastrophe occurred, I'd still like to know about it so I will have a > safeguard in the future. > The only true safeguard is a regular backup. Other good possibilities include a regular backup or possibly even a regular backup. Some people even go so far to claim that a regular backup is the only worthwhile protection system because it transcends the limits of you hard disk and computer live span. Among the multitude of choices just presented i'd always favour a regular backup. ;-) I wouldn't bother about a trash can facility because if your hard disk breaks your trash can will be broken too. Backups don't get broken when your hard disk fails *and* when made on secure media like MO disks (that's what i use and trust). If the data in question is *really* important i'd take responsibility to store various generations of backup media in another room, floor, building or even city. Linus himself and most Free Software developers even chose to spread their data over various continents... ;-) Good luck, P. *8^) -- If not specific to HP please always reply to "Paul Seelig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>"