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I deleted files on my linux drive that I shouldn't have. What is a good tool to use to recover these files that will:

  • Recover the various file types (txt, php etc)
  • Recover it as the original files names

TestDisk and PhotoRec almost do the trick, but the original filenames are not restored. So I need a better solution?

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Any of those helpful? superuser.com/questions/98183/… – Troggy♦ Jan 25 '10 at 13:38
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What file system? There are many. – David Thornley Jan 25 '10 at 14:50
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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec - Tested by myself, it works great.

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I once used GNU ddrescue to pull lots of data off a damaged hard drive using Puppy Linux. It did pretty well. I did have to download some development tools for Puppy, though, so I could compile it. – Nathaniel Jan 25 '10 at 22:56
The problem with PhotoRec is that it doesnt recover the actual file NAMES. Any suggestions on how to get the fileNames? – RD. Jan 26 '10 at 7:08
It could be hard because of the way how file system works. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode: "Inodes do not contain file names, only file metadata. Unix directories are lists of "link" structures, each of which contains one filename and one inode number." – Maciek Sawicki Jan 26 '10 at 11:40
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up vote 1 down vote

This may depend on the file system you are using. For example, on ext2, you can use undelete utility.

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up vote 1 down vote

It's probably not helpful to the OP, but the correct mantra here is "restore from backup."

If you haven't set up a fake delete (that moves files to a trashcan for later deletion), most of the Linux filesystems offer at best a probability of recovery.

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Unfortunately - at least in my case - it was in the process of moving files from my camera's media stick to my file server that things went wrong. The file server is backed up nightly by Bacula - haven't yet found a camera that will do that!! – kwutchak Feb 22 '10 at 0:19
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