Can I recover a deleted file in Linux ?

josedsilva · 06-01-2002, 12:15 AM

Hi,

is it possible to recover an erased file in Linux ?
Can you please tell me how Linux O.S. removes a file. Does it release the inode when the reference count becomes zero. Are there any softwares available for Linux which help recover erased files in Linux ?

Thanks,
jose.

Quote:

Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, ...

MasterC · 06-01-2002, 12:37 AM

How did you erase it? Did you use the 'rm' command or are you in X and chose delete? In X it sometimes (if you are lucky) will put it in the trashbin. Check that place first.

jayakrishnan · 06-01-2002, 12:52 AM

what filesystem is it. ext2 or ext3

jayakrishnan · 06-01-2002, 12:53 AM

or u can use 'mc' (midnightcommander)

sakeeb · 06-01-2002, 01:01 AM

i am using ext2 (also ext3 in another system) and i would like to know how an earased file can be recovered in linux.

is midnight commander a free software?

MasterC · 06-01-2002, 01:03 AM

mc is/should come with most distros. It sort of a GUI terminal. It will allow you to scroll around your system easier. Not too bad for not being X.

Noerr · 06-01-2002, 04:13 AM

yes but I don't think you can recover files if deleted with rm -f
--just yesterday I did brilant thing (rm -f /var/spool/mail/* instead of rm -f /var/spool/mqueue/* ) trying to be fast.

unSpawn · 06-01-2002, 04:42 AM

The more you've used the system in the time between deletion and recovery the lower the chances are you're gonna get something back. You could try recover (mc is easier IMO). There's also a link to the undelete-HOWTO.

Noerr · 06-01-2002, 11:16 AM

I didn't know there is an option to undelete in mc, that's very cool. But I don't think it works on ext3.
and I tried to delete some files but didn't really got anything back. I need to do some reading first I guess

MTK358 · 01-05-2010, 07:49 AM

I know that using rm deletes the file, but "deleting" the file in most GUI file managers actually just moves it to a "trash" folder (I don't know where it is, though).