Ninja Ubuntu Laptop Vanish: How Can I Remotely Undelete?

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snooly

Netcat doesn't do that. There is no "undelete" on unix-type systems. People are expected to delete with care, and have backups if they make a mistake.

Is unix-type systems the same as linux-type? I hear that Linux is based on Unix.

People tell me that when a file is deleted, that the file simply moves to a different part of the hard drive disk. That it pretends to be deleted but that it is in fact still there but invisible and in a blocked sector, capable of recovery, that is until you write over it.

Because I have 80 GBs of free space, I am assuming that I didn't write over all of my deleted files yet.

EDDY1 · 09-29-2011, 01:12 AM

Quote:

What would the home directory look like? Can somebody post what it looks like? Is the home directory something like /dev/sda3

Because sda5 takes up all of sda2 there would've been another partition being sda3, I don't know whqt happened to it but it is missing unless you also had an external drive for home.

Quote:

/dev/sda1 * 1 14411 115755008 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14412 14594 1463297 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14412 14594 1463296 82 Linux swap / Solaris

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:16 AM

Code:

 o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ ls /etc/fstab
/etc/fstab

snooly · 09-29-2011, 01:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold

Code:

 o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ ls /etc/fstab
/etc/fstab

try this:

cat /etc/fstab

snooly · 09-29-2011, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

Because sda5 takes up all of sda2 there would've been another partition being sda3, I don't know whqt happened to it but it is missing unless you also had an external drive for home.

Of course I'm guessing, but I assume that /home was on /dev/sda1. sda2 is an extended partition, and sda5 is a logical partition. I don't think there ever was sda3 or sda4. But I guess we would have to see what OEM-Config has in it to be sure.

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snooly

Joey I would probably have done the same thing and turned off the computer if it froze up. When that happens, normally during booting it would do a fsck (file system check) and then it would be fine. I don't know why your computer was trashed by you doing that, I don't think it should have happened like that.

You can get a copy of a Ubuntu live CD from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

You'll see that it has big buttons marked "Show me how" and options you can choose for the kind of computer you want to use for making the bootable CD or USB stick. If you can, use a rewritable DVD or USB stick, because that way you won't end up with a stack of "coasters" if something goes wrong. But this isn't very important, blank DVDs and CDs are cheap.

I don't really know if it will be possible to recover your lost files. I think your best chance is to boot off a USB stick or DVD or CD, then try to access your disk and see what is on there. If you can see the files, you can probably use scp or something to copy the files over the network to your desktop.

Obviously this is a painful experience for you, and hopefully now you see that you absolutely must make backups of your important files. Certainly your home directory must be backed up regularly. All the files you create can be destroyed at any time if you don't have backups. Linux operating system files don't really need to be backed up, because you can easily reinstall them if necessary. Even machine configuration files such as in /etc aren't super important to backup, because you can re-create them if needed.

What I would suggest you do is:

* download a Ubuntu live CD image
* make a bootable DVD, CD, or USB stick from that image
* boot your computer off it, and select that you want to try it without installing
* try to find your files on the laptop disk, if you can, then we can figure out a way to copy the files to your desktop.

Good luck Joey.

Thank you. I use to educate my mother about backing up files. I should take my own advice.

EDDY1 · 09-29-2011, 01:27 AM

@snooly
you are most likely right, highlighted in red

Quote:

Of course I'm guessing, but I assume that /home was on /dev/sda1. sda2 is an extended partition, and sda5 is a logical partition. I don't think there ever was sda3 or sda4. But I guess we would have to see what OEM-Config has in it to be sure.

Quote:

Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

/dev/sda1 * 1 14411 115755008 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14412 14594 1463297 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14412 14594 1463296 82 Linux swap / Solaris

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snooly

try this:

cat /etc/fstab

Code:

o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=eb95dfd0-f3df-49c0-aa8f-cbdf43e43798 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=8083536d-0b5b-49a9-ae45-6e051330f7cf none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/fd0        /media/floppy0  auto    rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0
o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$

snooly · 09-29-2011, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold

Is unix-type systems the same as linux-type? I hear that Linux is based on Unix.

People tell me that when a file is deleted, that the file simply moves to a different part of the hard drive disk. That it pretends to be deleted but that it is in fact still there but invisible and in a blocked sector, capable of recovery, that is until you write over it.

Because I have 80 GBs of free space, I am assuming that I didn't write over all of my deleted files yet.

Linux is "sort of like Unix", but strictly speaking, it is not Unix. That's just a minor detail so don't worry about it. If you can use Linux, you can probably use a Unix machine without too much trouble. Some people will get their knickers twisted if you use the wrong word, but really who cares.

With an ext2 file system, I think there is some chance of recovering deleted files. But apparently ext3 changed some things, and it became a lot harder. Once you post the contents of your /etc/fstab file, we can see what kind of file system you have. It's probably ext3 or ext4.

How big is this OEM-Config file? If it's small, it might be worth posting it here so we can figure out what happened.

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:37 AM

Code:

o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ cat /
cat: /: Is a directory

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snooly

Linux is "sort of like Unix", but strictly speaking, it is not Unix. That's just a minor detail so don't worry about it. If you can use Linux, you can probably use a Unix machine without too much trouble. Some people will get their knickers twisted if you use the wrong word, but really who cares.

With an ext2 file system, I think there is some chance of recovering deleted files. But apparently ext3 changed some things, and it became a lot harder. Once you post the contents of your /etc/fstab file, we can see what kind of file system you have. It's probably ext3 or ext4.

How big is this OEM-Config file? If it's small, it might be worth posting it here so we can figure out what happened.

How can I find OEM-Config? Tell me what to type into the terminal.

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:40 AM

Code:

o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ ls
Desktop  djs2       Downloads         js1  Music     Templates
djs0     djs3       examples.desktop  js2  Pictures  Videos
djs1     Documents  js0               js3  Public

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:41 AM

Code:

o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ ls ..
o
o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ ls ...
ls: cannot access ...: No such file or directory

JoeyArnold · 09-29-2011, 01:43 AM

OEM-Config

Code:

o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ ls oem-config
ls: cannot access oem-config: No such file or directory
o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ oem-config
debconf: DbDriver "passwords" warning: could not open /var/cache/debconf/passwords.dat: Permission denied
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/oem-config", line 573, in <module>
    main(oem_config)
  File "/usr/sbin/oem-config", line 505, in main
    version_file = open('/var/log/installer/version', 'w')
IOError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/installer/version'

snooly · 09-29-2011, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold

How can I find OEM-Config? Tell me what to type into the terminal.

I've never heard of the file before this thread. So I'm no expert. Bear in mind that I don't know anything about the file apart from what you've posted.

You can try:

locate OEM-Config

That might not work, so then try this:

ls -laR / | less -i

This will do a full search of your filesystem, starting at the root. The output is piped into less, which will let you see one page at a time. You should try searching for the word "oem-config" by typing in "/oem-config" without quotes, then press enter. Then you keep typing in "/" and press enter each time if there is more than one.