Updates:
While trying to recover, I had another idea, if you remember, I theorised that
"Simple backup and restore" created a directory in /media.
Following up on that theory, I used testdisk to go to /media/KC in the old
partition of my laptop harddisk and lo behold, the directory did exist and all
my backups (almost 15 of them - I am a paranoid backer upper) were safely in
that directory.
!!! WIN !!!
I recovered all my incremental backup files. I had my original full backup and
hence have all my data back.
BTW, Ubuntu puts the underscore *after* the name. Since /media/KC" was created
by "Simple backup", Ubuntu created the directory "/media/KC_"
and not "/media/_KC" (i.e. the underscore is *after* "KC" and not before) as I
wrongly reported in my earlier email.
Moral of the story:
1. Take regular backups on external media like DVDs and keep testing restores
once a month or so.
2. Keep thanking the selfless souls who write great software and release it
under GPL
3. Make contributions to projects which save your life - either code, bug
reports, testing, documentation or cash (I am donating $$ to testdisk!!)
With this exercise, I have become pretty experienced in data recovery -
I recovered a mysql DB after a bug dropped all tables in the DB in the
production server. It was a new server and we still hadn't started
automated backups on it. It is possible to recover the DB from just the
ibdata files provided you have the schema and have some idea of the
text content of the tables.
I would also recommend Jaunty - Ubuntu 9.04 to all. It really is very good.
Though I have been a lifelong RH/Fedora fan and use Fedora/CentOs on servers as
well as my laptop, I started dual booting (actually quadraple booting - Fedora,
Ubuntu, Suse and ...) Ubuntu since 7.10. With 9.04 I think I have migrated
completely to Ubuntu on my laptop. I erased Fedora 10. I am very used to
Fedora/Cent on servers mainly because I have been using it since 1999 and know
it well - .profiles, .rc, service controls, init.d.....but for everyday office
use - documents, scans, productivity...Ubuntu is really up there. In terms of
usability for non-geeks, I think Ubuntu has finally beaten Windows. The
usability is fantastic and desktop effects work without binary drivers. It is
very close to Mac and should beat it too pretty soon.
Thanks to all for reading my loooong emails and for pitching in with
suggestions.
kc
K. C. Ramakrishna
www.rknowsys.com
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