Data Recovery

[blackbelt_jones]

While installing Sidux on a partition, I had the installer mount the partition where I keep most of my files as /tmp. My (apparently stupid) plan was to simply create a new mount point, and reedit the entry in fstab accordingly. Since the sidux installer doesn't reformat any partitions other than /, I thought it would be safe, but now all my files are gone.

I think they might still be recoverable somehow. Konqueror says the partition is 398 GB, but when I open the partition in Konqueror, it says that there are 346.4 GB of free space, even though all the files in there, including hidden files, totals less than a megabyte. That's as if there are a little more than 50 GB of "invisible" data somewhere

Back at my former job, I heard about situations like this in DOS, and there was a method for recovery. Do I have a prayer, and if so, what would that be?

[folkert]

I don't have a solution, but have you tried mounting it from a live-cd?

[blackbelt_jones]

Yeah. Now I'm tryng magicrescue. Right now I'm running the recipe for recovering .avi files, and it's spitting out the first few seconds of each file.

[blackbelt_jones]

So the data is definitely there, but apparently not fully recoverable, at least by this method. Damn. Serves me right for putting off purchasing a backup hard drive. I ordered one today. I don't want to start using this partitin again until Ive resolved this so I can reformat and claim the whole partition. I think I'm going to resolve this by giving up.

[lugoteehalt]

So the data is definitely there, but apparently not fully recoverable, at least by this method. Damn. Serves me right for putting off purchasing a backup hard drive. I ordered one today. I don't want to start using this partitin again until Ive resolved this so I can reformat and claim the whole partition. I think I'm going to resolve this by giving up.

The standard thing, would have thought, is to use TestDisk. It's a very powerful thing.

[blackbelt_jones]

I'll remember that next time. I would have given it more time, but not wanting to use that partition was holding me up. Most of the data that was lost was downloaded content. All my configuration files remained intact in the /home partition. So I'm just downloading it all over again.

[trilarian]

Just a suggestion that is sorta related...

Maybe change your scheme slightly? As in for things like downloads, make a temp folder in your home directory instead of /tmp. This way, even though they are in progress or not critical, it is still treated with the same level of concern as the rest of your home directory.

[Satanic Atheist]

Don't use /tmp for anything. Let the system use it. I know the name is a little bit of an indication that you CAN temporarily place stuff there but a lot of systems now wipe /tmp at start up or shutdown time to prevent it from getting out of hand.

I personally use /usr/share/public as a folder that I can NFS export and Samba to shift stuff around the network. I also have /usr/share/transfer which achieves the same but is intended purely to move data around and not be used for long-term storage.

I'm working away from NFS since it has so many constraints now - owner/group is stuffed on it, for example, if different machines have different allocations.

Anyway, look up "Data Miner" or something like that (I'll see if I can get the correct name) which is a Linux program for digging VERY deep into the filesystem to recover lost stuff.

James

[blackbelt_jones]

I don't use /tmp for anything.

Here's what I was up to, okay? Please, I'm embarassed enough.

[trilarian]

Don't feel bad - we've all done silly things that later we swear we should of known better.

On the bright side - you now have a backup drive en route, have a permanent memory about installers, better knowledge of the file system, and didn't loose anything you can't replace by re-downloading. Not bad for a botched install.

[blackbelt_jones]

Don't feel bad - we've all done silly things that later we swear we should of known better.

On the bright side - you now have a backup drive en route, have a permanent memory about installers, better knowledge of the file system, and didn't loose anything you can't replace by re-downloading. Not bad for a botched install.

Oh yes. All the stuff that I have been working on, my command line tutorial, my kde and fluxbox configuration files, my scripts, my notes... all of that stuff is either online or in my home directory, which was not touched. The only thing that makes me feel foolish is that I posted a hubris-laden message in here about how amazingly fast my install was, not yet knowing that I had already burned through 50 GB of booty. But yeah, this experience could wind up saving something that is truly irreplacable, and I might never even know.

Incidentally, you want to know what really made me feel better? Seeing my external hard drive being sold at Circuit City today for a little more than what I'm going to wind up paying for more two of them on EBay. (I already have one, and I love it!) Okay, maybe a little less with the 10 percent discount cause they're going out of business, and good riddance.

[blackbelt_jones]

Hey, I just got some good news! Even though I lost the .torrent files, the ktorrent installed on my preexisting kubuntu partition still has all the tracking data, so recreating many of my lost files is going to be a lot easier. No need to track all those torrents down again.