LinuxQuestions.org - Ninja Ubuntu Laptop Vanish: How Can I Remotely Undelete?

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Does it have to be from a live Ubuntu CD?

Quote:

Originally Posted by snooly (Post 4485094)

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.

Can I only see what is on my computer from a live CD? Because my laptop does boot up. Even through all of the files are gone, I can boot up into Ubuntu (or specifically GNOME Desktop Version: 2.32.1), go into the terminal and type in sudo fdisk -l to get the following outputs: but are these outputs the real outputs? Or do I have to try this again via a live CD? Will that give me different results? Or can I try this from my desktop and ask terminal sudo fdisk -l for my laptop disk? Can fDisk work via ethernet to a remote laptop or computer ever?

Here is the inputs and outputs, again, just for the record:

Do I have to boot from a live Ubuntu CD in order to type in that code in the terminal (Sudo Fdisk -L) in order to get the most accurate results or output or answers?

Like I already said, I lost all of my data and my operating system reverted from Ubuntu 11.10 to 10.04. But since I can still boot up, I typed in sudo fdisk -l in the terminal and got the following output:

Laptop Input:

On my Ubuntu 10.04 broken Lost-Data Laptop, I typed in:

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Laptop Output:

Code:

o@o-HP-Compaq-6910p-GH715AW-ABA:~$ sudo fdisk -l

[sudo] password for o:



Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes

255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Disk identifier: 0x000ca236



  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System

/dev/sda1  *          1      14411  115755008  83  Linux

/dev/sda2          14412      14594    1463297    5  Extended

/dev/sda5          14412      14594    1463296  82  Linux swap / Solaris

if you installed 11.04 & now you're seeing 10.04, are you able to boot 10.04?
If so try "update-grub" maybe 11.04 will be detected so u can boot

Quote:

Originally Posted by corp769 (Post 4485086)

Hold on a minute.... Do you even know what netcat is, and what it is used for? Read here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netcat
I'm sorry, but you seem to be under-educated when it comes to linux. Do you even know what you are doing? I am not being mean.... I just want to know if you really know or not what you are doing.

Somebody suggested NetCat. Thanks for the Wikipedia link. I have never heard of it before. I may not know everything, but I know how to follow directions, if somebody had the right code, the right list of commands I could punch in at the terminal. NetCat seems kind of confusing.

Does anybody know if NetCat can undelete from one computer and restore the data onto a different computer via ethernet?

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold (Post 4485128)

Somebody suggested NetCat. Thanks for the Wikipedia link. I have never heard of it before. I may not now everything, but I know how to follow directions, if somebody had the right code, the right list of commands I could punch in at the terminal. NetCat seems kind of confusing.

Does anybody know if NetCat can undelete from one computer and restore the data onto a different computer via ethernet?

No - Fully read what it is about, and you will learn what it is used for.

Joey I didn't completely understand the situation, and I probably still don't. But from looking at what you say, you are booting the laptop, and the files are gone. Somehow the OS version changed from 11 to 10. That is very wacky.

You don't need to boot from a live CD, because you've already booted off hard disk.

Looking at your disk configuration from fdisk, you have 3 partitions. sda1 is your main partition, sda 2 is extended, and sda5 is swap. You should look in the /lost+found directory, you would probably need to be root to do this.

But it's not looking good, I think those files are permanently lost. I can't imagine why the OS version changed.

Laptop 11.10 crashed back to 10.04 via OEM-Config error thing

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1 (Post 4485127)

if you installed 11.04 & now you're seeing 10.04, are you able to boot 10.04?
If so try "update-grub" maybe 11.04 will be detected so u can boot

When my laptop crashed, it went from Ubuntu 11.10 back down to 10.04. Free Geek said that happens sometimes because of this OEM-Config file script error bug problem thing that resets everything.

Quote:

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

t
Someone else may have to comfirm but all you have is / & swap no home partition, if you had important docs or files in home then you need to stop & think about recovering them, I'm no expert , but this is where I stop. Good Luck.

Also iI aplogize for not being able to help you, but Testdisk may recover some of your files

Quote:

Originally Posted by corp769 (Post 4485130)

No - Fully read what it is about, and you will learn what it is used for.

I am not questioning the things that it says it can do. I am just wondering if there it has any tricks.

I can see that it say: Netcat is a computer networking service for reading from and writing network connections using TCP or UDP.

I want to assume that this program doesn't seem to remotely undelete things. But I still wanted to ask people what they think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1 (Post 4485140)

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold (Post 4485144)

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

No, /dev/sda3 is a partition (technically it'll be a block device). Your home directory is usually /home/username. You might want to read this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold (Post 4485143)

I can see that it say: Netcat is a computer networking service for reading from and writing network connections using TCP or UDP.

I want to assume that this program doesn't seem to remotely undelete things. But I still wanted to ask people what they think.

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.

I have never heard anyone in this forum make mention of Hiren's boot cd but it has mini linux & tesy\tdisk on it you may be able to recover your files from mini-linux. Another good 1 that has testdik is Gparted-live-cd

Quote:

Originally Posted by snooly (Post 4485134)

How do I sudo look at my lost and found?

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1 (Post 4485149)

I have this CD labeled GPartedEd 0.4.6

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold (Post 4485144)

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

According to the fdisk output, your root partition is /dev/sda1. You don't have a separate /home partition, so /home would also be on /dev/sda1.

Please post the contents of /etc/fstab, especially the line that has "/" under mount point. Also if there is a line which has "/home" for mount point, that would be very interesting. But I doubt there will be, I'm pretty sure /home would have been on /dev/sda1.

---------- Post added 09-29-11 at 04:09 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by JoeyArnold (Post 4485150)

How do I sudo look at my lost and found?

You become root, then you use the ls command to list what is in there.

sudo su -
ls -la /lost+found