Dear all,

I have been configuring a server and accidentally deleted the home directory of an user. I was using Fedora Core 8. I opened the "system-config-users" and then was to delete a user without deleting his home directory. I forgot to uncheck the do not delete home dir option and now that is deleted. This is on a ext3 file system. I will like to know if there is a way to recover the dara therein. I have remounted the filesystem readonly now such that I can not do anything more in it. Your help is most welcome.
Regards.
Prasun.

First avoid using the partition
Use the undelete tool...it will work on ext3 too

Best

A. Mani

dear amani,

Can you plseae tell me how to use the undelete tool ?

Regards.
Prasun.

Dear Amani,

Can you please tell me how to use the recovery tool ? I am not familiar with it.
Regards.
Prasun.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=785328

http://home.fnal.gov/~muzaffar/undelete/README.html

http://www.linux.com/feed/61339

http://librenix.com/?inode=10355

http://recover.sourceforge.net/linux/

http://www.data-recovery-software.ne...Recovery.shtml

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...script-613734/

I did not read through all the links given in the previous post. The first and most important thing in that situation would be what amani said: do not use this partition anymore!
Unmount it! Or remount it read-only! Then you could make a backup of that partition using dd for example. Or go right to the undeletion step. Only after that you should use it again.
The other users will be affected by this - of course because during that time they can't use the system.
But: what is more important to you?

If that partition is actively used/written to, chances are that the space that once belonged to the deleted users files will be re-used.
If that happens - no undelete-tool can restore the data.
As long as no new files are created, you can be relatively certain, that the files can be recovered - using the tools mentioned already.
That is why it was said: do not use that partition...

I was offline, so couldn't reply earlier.
An easy way would be to use systemrescue cd for the purpose.

http://www.sysresccd.org/
Also read http://osdir.com/ml/file-systems.ext.../msg00032.html

Boot your PC from that and do the rescue operations...

You cannot use giis (link 3,4 in ehawk's post) apparently.

http://recover.sourceforge.net/unix/ is a way (you do not need a live cd for that)

Best

A. Mani

Dear all,

Thank you for your reply. I apotheosize for not writing your name correctly A. Mani. I will try the methods you have suggested now. I have manage to grep a few things already, but will like to have all of them back if possible in the way they were. Hope the other rescue options does the job. Let me try.

regards.
Prasun.