Undeleting a whole reiserfs partition

Undeleting a whole reiserfs partition

[Javier Marcet]

Yesterday, by error, a 'rm -fr' slipped through to my /music partition,
a 20GB reiserfs which was at arounf 85% full. SInce then no other
activity took place on it. Is there any easy way to recover my files?

In the docs, it says you cannot undelete files in reiserfs partitions,
since what you delete is most probable overwritten by the next comitted
data. In my case, there has been no additional modification of the
partition, though.

Undeleting a whole reiserfs partition

[zephod]

>Yesterday, by error, a 'rm -fr' slipped through to my /music partition,
>a 20GB reiserfs which was at arounf 85% full. SInce then no other
>activity took place on it. Is there any easy way to recover my files?
>
>In the docs, it says you cannot undelete files in reiserfs partitions,
>since what you delete is most probable overwritten by the next comitted
>data. In my case, there has been no additional modification of the
>partition, though.

Today I did exactly the same thing (on a 3.9 GB partition though). I could
have killed myself for doing it!

I first backed up the partition just to be safe:

   dd if=/dev/hdsomething of=backupfie
   losetup /dev/loop5 backupfile

then I tried:

   reiserfsck --rebuild-tree --scan-whole-partition /dev/loop5
   mount /dev/loop5 <mountpoint>

and what do you know! All my deleted stuff reappeared. As we speak I am
restoring now the original partition.

I guess this only worked because immediatly unmounted the partition after my
unfortunate error to prevent writing new nodes and data.

Also: Making backups of your data is never wasted time nor a waste of CD's
 and it is better for your nervous system too (I think this cost me another
 year of my life ;) )

Hope this works out for you,

Z.

Re: Undeleting a whole reiserfs partition

[Hans Reiser]

zephod (by way of zephod ) wrote:

>>Yesterday, by error, a 'rm -fr' slipped through to my /music partition,
>>a 20GB reiserfs which was at arounf 85% full. SInce then no other
>>activity took place on it. Is there any easy way to recover my files?
>>
>>In the docs, it says you cannot undelete files in reiserfs partitions,
>>since what you delete is most probable overwritten by the next comitted
>>data. 
>>
Where does it say that?  It needs correcting.....

>>In my case, there has been no additional modification of the
>>partition, though.
>>    
>>
>
>Today I did exactly the same thing (on a 3.9 GB partition though). I could
>have killed myself for doing it!
>
>I first backed up the partition just to be safe:
>
>   dd if=/dev/hdsomething of=backupfie
>   losetup /dev/loop5 backupfile
>
>then I tried:
>
>   reiserfsck --rebuild-tree --scan-whole-partition /dev/loop5
>   mount /dev/loop5 <mountpoint>
>
>and what do you know! All my deleted stuff reappeared. As we speak I am
>restoring now the original partition.
>
>I guess this only worked because immediatly unmounted the partition after my
>unfortunate error to prevent writing new nodes and data.
>
>Also: Making backups of your data is never wasted time nor a waste of CD's
> and it is better for your nervous system too (I think this cost me another
> year of my life ;) )
>
>Hope this works out for you,
>
>Z.
>
>
>
>
>  
>


-- 
Hans