how do I become root on Mageia5
 

I am having problems becoming root to fix Testdisc which I cannot extract
because I am not root.

I have deleted the root disallow marking under settings for login manager, but it refuses to allow root login.

Help would be appreciated.

As suggested in the other thread stop using Mageia. Everytime you download, extract or install programs your deleted files will be overwritten. You need to boot using a live CD or USB like ALT linux rescue which is the first one on the list. You also need a USB drive as a destination for the recovered files. Use another computer to create the live CD or USB disc.

I don't know what the default installation requires for hard drive space but at least that much of your windows files have been overwritten and not recoverable unless you have a backup. In addition, I assume that a swap partition was created which could be physically anywhere on the disk depending on how it was partitioned. Which means other data was overwritten including maybe the MFT.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd

The original thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...es-4175549734/

Thank you Michaelk for taking the time to respond but it seems more complicated than that - I can uninstall but how do I retrieve my files? There must be a way as they were not intentionally erased

Why don't you login as a user and use su to become root? Or login at a virtual console (ctl+alt+f1) which should allow root logins?

The details were listed in the other thread. Deleting a file only removes it's reference but not the actual data itself regardless of operating system or filesystem unless you perform some type of secure erase. All of your files are swimming in one's and zeros so finding them is not easy no matter the circumstances of how they were erased..

Again anytime you are running Megeia data is written to disk and more files are lost.

ALT Linux Rescue mount external drive problem
 

[QUOTE=michaelk;5400310]As suggested in the other thread stop using Mageia. Everytime you download, extract or install programs your deleted files will be overwritten. You need to boot using a live CD or USB like ALT linux rescue which is the first one on the list. You also need a USB drive as a destination for the recovered files. Use another computer to create the live CD or USB disc.

I have made a USB with ALT Linux Rescue on. I am using photorec to recover files. I am having problems mounting a USB external for the recovered files.
All it seems to allow is recovery to the original disc. In the photorec manual it says: File system from external disk may be available in a /media, /mnt or /run/media sub-directory. Mount your destination drive if necessary.

I cannot find the external disk in /media, /mnt or /run/media sub-directory. I have found the drive (called LIVE) however in /dev/disk/by-label/LIVE but it puts the recovered files in the by-label directory and not onto LIVE.

How do I mount the external drive? (It is listed in photorec but will not allow recovery to the external drive)