[SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

jlacroix · 2010-10-01 14:04:37

I am hoping someone can help me with this. My desktop PC has two hard drives, a 1.5TB drive (which is where Arch lives) and a 320GB drive (which is secondary). I was at one point storing some backups on my 320GB drive, but I decided later to re-purpose the 320GB to be used for disk images, so I deleted my backup folder because I had everything on my external drive. Or so I thought.

It turns out that there was one file that I didn't back up, a save file for Pokemon Platinum I've been working on for a long time, with some very rare creatures in it. The file name would have been "Pokemon Platinum.sav" or similar. (Even though I have physical DS games, I play them all from an R4 card that I was backing up to my 320GB drive). I am hoping that I can recover the file.

The 320GB drive was not reformatted when I re-purposed it, all I did was delete my backup folder because I thought I copied that backup folder to my external drive. Also, I did not add any new files as far as I remember, I only deleted that folder. I tried Photorec, but I gave up on it because it seemed as though it was tailored specifically to images, and I'm not certain if it can look for a generic *.SAV file.

Do you guys know of a way I may be able to search this drive for the file? If it's lost then it's my fault but I at least want to try. I've been able to restore deleted files from NTFS drives before, but I have never tried on EXT4 before.

Last edited by jlacroix (2010-10-01 20:36:21)

karol · 2010-10-01 14:21:08

Try http://extundelete.sourceforge.net/ or google for similar apps.
Testdisk (a friend of Photorec) may help too.

https://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/ … in_Ext4.3F
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 48#p522648

Last edited by karol (2010-10-01 14:27:12)

Stebalien · 2010-10-01 14:47:57

Also look at foremost.

jlacroix · 2010-10-01 16:44:13

I just finished running extundelete, and it did recover a bunch of files, but not one that I wanted. If that doesn't find it, am I pretty much done?

karol · 2010-10-01 16:47:42

jlacroix wrote:

I just finished running extundelete, and it did recover a bunch of files, but not one that I wanted. If that doesn't find it, am I pretty much done?

I think you should backup important files off-site: gmail, dropbox and the like. Even if your computer fries and you lose all data from you hard drives, you can still restore the important parts from backup (if you remember the password to e.g. your gmail account ;P)

You can try every tool you can get your hands on to get this file back

Good luck

Bregol · 2010-10-01 16:49:25

Not necessarily. Different tools have different methods and may or may not pick something up. I would try another tool or two before giving up if I wanted the file bad enough. Photorec has done me good before. Autopsy/Sleuthkit is another that hasnt been mentioned yet, although not the easiest to learn to use.

jlacroix · 2010-10-01 18:21:22

Bregol wrote:

Not necessarily. Different tools have different methods and may or may not pick something up. I would try another tool or two before giving up if I wanted the file bad enough. Photorec has done me good before. Autopsy/Sleuthkit is another that hasnt been mentioned yet, although not the easiest to learn to use.

Just finished using Photorec, and it created about 50 "recup" folders. Is there a command I can run to search all of those folders for a particular file? I know the file name ends with either *.sav or *.SAV.

thestinger · 2010-10-01 20:14:56

find dir/ -name \*.sav

(this searches recursively so just use it at the top directory)

Last edited by thestinger (2010-10-01 20:15:23)

karol · 2010-10-01 20:17:53

thestinger wrote:

find dir/ -name \*.sav
(this searches recursively so just use it at the top directory)

I don't think it will work if those files are deleted.

jlacroix · 2010-10-01 20:23:34

thestinger wrote:

find dir/ -name \*.sav
(this searches recursively so just use it at the top directory)

I ran that command, but it produced no output. It went right back to the command prompt so I'm wondering if I did it right? Or does it really search that fast?

I did:
find /home/jlacroix/restore/ -name \*.sav

thestinger · 2010-10-01 20:23:40

@karol he wanted to search the folders of recovered files

@jlacroix, find does search really fast (you can try it with a file you know exists), but it's case sensitive so try \*.SAV etc. too

Last edited by thestinger (2010-10-01 20:25:42)

karol · 2010-10-01 20:29:01

thestinger wrote:

@karol he wanted to search the folders of recovered files

Ah, now I get it. Sorry.

find /home/jlacroix/restore/ -iname "*.sav"

is case insensitive - will get both .sav and .SAV and all the other combinations.

jlacroix · 2010-10-01 20:36:09

karol wrote:

thestinger wrote:
@karol he wanted to search the folders of recovered files
Ah, now I get it. Sorry.
find /home/jlacroix/restore/ -iname "*.sav"
is case insensitive - will get both .sav and .SAV and all the other combinations.

I did the command as suggested, but I came up with nothing still. I guess I'm going to have to consider the file gone. It's a shame but I should have been more careful so I guess I get what I deserve.

I really appreciate the help everyone. If nothing else I've at least learned a few new commands.

karol · 2010-10-01 20:37:25

jlacroix wrote:

I really appreciate the help everyone. If nothing else I've at least learned a few new commands.

Next stop: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup :-)

jlacroix · 2010-10-01 22:20:15

karol wrote:

jlacroix wrote:
I really appreciate the help everyone. If nothing else I've at least learned a few new commands.
Next stop: http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backup :-)

Actually, I have a very complete backup solution. My server, laptop, and external hard drives are synced using Unison daily, and my external hard drive is off-site. The folder for my DS card backup folder was the ONLY folder not part of my backup system. Everything else is backed up in at least three places. (I follow the 321 backup rule). I also save my Arch installs in Clonezilla images that are easily restored if a hard drive breaks, and Unison adds the files back.

I'm going to make sure my DS card is part of my backup scheme going forward.

Last edited by jlacroix (2010-10-01 22:21:00)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-10-01 14:04:37

[SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#2 2010-10-01 14:21:08

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#3 2010-10-01 14:47:57

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#4 2010-10-01 16:44:13

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#5 2010-10-01 16:47:42

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#6 2010-10-01 16:49:25

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#7 2010-10-01 18:21:22

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#8 2010-10-01 20:14:56

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#9 2010-10-01 20:17:53

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#10 2010-10-01 20:23:34

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#11 2010-10-01 20:23:40

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#12 2010-10-01 20:29:01

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#13 2010-10-01 20:36:09

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

#14 2010-10-01 20:37:25

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#15 2010-10-01 22:20:15

Re: [SOLVED] Help Recovering a File

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