how to recover deleted files?

[phsieh2005]

Hi,

I accidently deleted folders/files AND emptied the trash can. Are there ways to recover these data? I am using SuSE 10.2 64 bit OS. Thanks!

phsieh2005

[gogalthorp]

afraid not. At least not with extreme manual low level sector editing. Be more careful next time.

[oz]

Some folks have reported recovery success using PhotoRec:

PhotoRec - CGSecurity

It supposedly works on a number of different file types.

Let us know how it goes.

[phsieh2005]

Thanks a lot Ozar!

I will give PhotoRec a try today.

phsieh2005

[gogalthorp]

If you download and install you have a good chance of wiping the data. You need to do it from another machine and do all operations from some bootable media.. Even surfing the web generates temp files that have a possibility of over writing the data.

[phsieh2005]

Hi,

I ran photorec from Knoppix LiveCD version 5.1.0. It is very confusing to me how to use this photorec program.

From the website, it mentioned that photorec can recognize 80 file extension. But, what will happen if the file extension is not in the list? How about the files without extension? Can it recognize the whole file folder?

I am not able to find any user documentation for photorec. Any suggestion?

phsieh2005

[oz]

I've never used it personally, so can't give any advice. I was hoping it would be an easy task and you could tell us how to use it and how well it worked.

If I should run across any documenatation, I'll post back about it.

[phsieh2005]

Hi, Ozar,

I booted up to knoppoix. Plugged in a 512 mb flash drive. Started photorec.
(I really had no idea what I was doing at this point). Selected the flash drive to write. Then, within few seconds, I got an error message saying my flash drive was full.

Later examing the flash drive, I saw a bunch of files in there (*.txt, *.html, *.png..). It looks like photorec searched the hard drives and copied those files with known extension to the flash drive.

I do not know whethere I used photorec correctly, though.

Few years back, I came across a software run on windows 98. It can looked deeper into the hard drives for the deleted files. I was hoping that I can find similar utility on the linux.

Thanks a lot guys!

phsieh2005