Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread Neil Bothwick
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:09:37 +0100, pat wrote:

 One of my coligues used this rm -rf / command on his ext3 partition
 as root ... of course :-( He removes about 50% of data. And my question
 is: is there a utility to undelete the files and directories or at
 least some files? I know that this shouldn't be possible but data are
 worth to ask :-)

He could try photorec from the testdisk package, but mount the filesystem
ro immediately to reduce any further damage. The output from photorec
isn't pretty and will take a lot of work to sort out what is worth
keeping, but that is all part of the learning process :P


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Neil Bothwick

Bother, said Pooh, as Satan laid his soul to waste.


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Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread Alan McKinnon
On Friday 15 February 2008, Neil Bothwick wrote:
 On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:09:37 +0100, pat wrote:
  One of my coligues used this rm -rf / command on his ext3
  partition as root ... of course :-( He removes about 50% of data.
  And my question is: is there a utility to undelete the files and
  directories or at least some files? I know that this shouldn't be
  possible but data are worth to ask :-)

 He could try photorec from the testdisk package, but mount the
 filesystem ro immediately to reduce any further damage. The output
 from photorec isn't pretty and will take a lot of work to sort out
 what is worth keeping, but that is all part of the learning process
 :P

Neil, you are a master of understatement :-)

pat, it might be possible to get some stuff back, IF he remounted ro 
immediately and IF not much writing to the disk happened in the 
meantime.

However, by the time you are done it is usually not worth the effort it 
took. It's easier to reinstall and restore backups. But if there are 
some irreplaceable files on that disk, you have no choice. good luck to 
him.


-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread pat
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:41:28 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote
 On Friday 15 February 2008, Neil Bothwick wrote:
  On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:09:37 +0100, pat wrote:
   One of my coligues used this rm -rf / command on his ext3
   partition as root ... of course :-( He removes about 50% of data.
   And my question is: is there a utility to undelete the files and
   directories or at least some files? I know that this shouldn't be
   possible but data are worth to ask :-)
 
  He could try photorec from the testdisk package, but mount the
  filesystem ro immediately to reduce any further damage. The output
  from photorec isn't pretty and will take a lot of work to sort out
  what is worth keeping, but that is all part of the learning process
  :P
 
 Neil, you are a master of understatement :-)
 
 pat, it might be possible to get some stuff back, IF he remounted ro 
 immediately and IF not much writing to the disk happened in the 
 meantime.
 
 However, by the time you are done it is usually not worth the effort 
 it took. It's easier to reinstall and restore backups. But if there 
 are some irreplaceable files on that disk, you have no choice. good 
 luck to him.
 

There's a home directory ... .

 Pat
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Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread Alan McKinnon
On Friday 15 February 2008, pat wrote:
  However, by the time you are done it is usually not worth the
  effort it took. It's easier to reinstall and restore backups. But
  if there are some irreplaceable files on that disk, you have no
  choice. good luck to him.

 There's a home directory ... .

With luck, there's a backup too!

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

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Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread Uwe Thiem
On Friday 15 February 2008, pat wrote:
 On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:41:28 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote

  Neil, you are a master of understatement :-)
 
  pat, it might be possible to get some stuff back, IF he remounted
  ro immediately and IF not much writing to the disk happened in
  the meantime.
 
  However, by the time you are done it is usually not worth the
  effort it took. It's easier to reinstall and restore backups. But
  if there are some irreplaceable files on that disk, you have no
  choice. good luck to him.

 There's a home directory ... .

What do you mean, Pat? /home still exists and is populated? Then the 
solution is easy. Back it up immediately. Re-install your whole 
system and restore /home. 

Uwe

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Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread Philip Webb
080215 pat wrote:
 One of my coligues used this rm -rf / command on his ext3 partition
 as root: He removes about 50% of data.  is there a utility
 to undelete the files and directories or at least some files?

One of the Linux news sites relayed an article yesterday,
which mentioned several recovery apps, which are all in Gentoo :
  magicrescue  gpart  sleuthkit  foremost .

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Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread Alex Schuster
Uwe Thiem writes:

 On Friday 15 February 2008, pat wrote:
  On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:41:28 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote
 
   Neil, you are a master of understatement :-)
  
   pat, it might be possible to get some stuff back, IF he remounted
   ro immediately and IF not much writing to the disk happened in
   the meantime.
  
   However, by the time you are done it is usually not worth the
   effort it took. It's easier to reinstall and restore backups. But
   if there are some irreplaceable files on that disk, you have no
   choice. good luck to him.
 
  There's a home directory ... .

 What do you mean, Pat? /home still exists and is populated? 

I think he means there _was_ a /home directory.

I'd mout ro, and backup all files that are still there. photorec will find lots 
of files, but only as single files, without the directory structure. See 
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/File_Formats_Recovered_By_PhotoRec for a list 
of supported file types.

There are undelete tools for ext2, but I heard they should not work with ext3, 
because it zeros out things instead of just marking them as deleted as it was 
in ext2. However, I also heard that someone had success with midnight 
commander, which has an undelete feature (F9, Commands menu).

I did not try it, but this tool sounds promising:
http://freshmeat.net/projects/giis

giis (gET iT i sAY) is a file recovery tool for Ext2/Ext3 filesystems. Once 
installed, current files and newly created files can be recovered. It allows 
users to recover all deleted files, recover files owned by a specific user, 
dump data from old file locations, and recover files of a specific type, such 
as text or PNG. A forensic analyzer is also provided to assist users during 
recovery.

Good luck,
Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] undelete files and dirs on ext3 partition

2008-02-15 Thread pat
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 12:01:25 +0100, Alex Schuster wrote
 Uwe Thiem writes:
 
  On Friday 15 February 2008, pat wrote:
   On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 11:41:28 +0200, Alan McKinnon wrote
  
Neil, you are a master of understatement :-)
   
pat, it might be possible to get some stuff back, IF he remounted
ro immediately and IF not much writing to the disk happened in
the meantime.
   
However, by the time you are done it is usually not worth the
effort it took. It's easier to reinstall and restore backups. But
if there are some irreplaceable files on that disk, you have no
choice. good luck to him.
  
   There's a home directory ... .
 
  What do you mean, Pat? /home still exists and is populated? 
 
 I think he means there _was_ a /home directory.
 
 I'd mout ro, and backup all files that are still there. photorec will find 
 lots of files, but only as single files, without the directory structure. See 
 http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/File_Formats_Recovered_By_PhotoRec for a 
 list of supported file types.
 
 There are undelete tools for ext2, but I heard they should not work with 
 ext3, because it zeros out things instead of just marking them as deleted as 
 it was in ext2. However, I also heard that someone had success with midnight 
 commander, which has an undelete feature (F9, Commands menu).
 
 I did not try it, but this tool sounds promising:
 http://freshmeat.net/projects/giis
 
 giis (gET iT i sAY) is a file recovery tool for Ext2/Ext3 filesystems. Once 
 installed, current files and newly created files can be recovered. It allows 
 users to recover all deleted files, recover files owned by a specific user, 
 dump data from old file locations, and recover files of a specific type, such 
 as text or PNG. A forensic analyzer is also provided to assist users during 
 recovery.


Yes, there was the home directory.

Thanks to all for the help.

 Pat