I have just had one of those life re-appreciation moments, after something catastrophically horrible has ceased to happened to one of the linux systems that I am reluctantly responsible for.
The fundament is, there were sixty odd thousand ( I know :| ) files of significant importance (which user B had specifically said not to back up and I wasn't aware were are as important as they are) that suddenly vanished, and thankfully I managed to jump down the machine's throat and disconnect the partition before doing the same and worse to the user responsible.
By The Omnissiah's grace, these files are as I type being recovered (distressingly, without the directory tree but that can and will be sorted later), and I feel that I should share what I used to do so in case something truly horrible happens to some jref user's machine and they lose hope.
1. This worked solely because the partition involved is ext2 ( elderly unshakable server). If it had been ext3 the chances of success approach nil due to it's alternate method of operation. (As I have found out through several hours of unwanted research)
2.Secondly, system and user partitions were separate (made so shortly after I came to power as it happens <.<). Had they not been, the files would have been almost immediately overwritten by usual system operation.
3. thanks to 2. I was able to disconnect the partition without warping the IRC and FTP server that runs off the machine.
4. I used testdisk and photorec in roughly equal measure. They conveniently work in Windows too.
Not exactly the sort of thing to interest normal folk here, but maybe someone will remember these in their hour of need, as i've been there without moral, technical and emotional support and wouldn't wish it on a furry.
That is all <.<
The fundament is, there were sixty odd thousand ( I know :| ) files of significant importance (which user B had specifically said not to back up and I wasn't aware were are as important as they are) that suddenly vanished, and thankfully I managed to jump down the machine's throat and disconnect the partition before doing the same and worse to the user responsible.
By The Omnissiah's grace, these files are as I type being recovered (distressingly, without the directory tree but that can and will be sorted later), and I feel that I should share what I used to do so in case something truly horrible happens to some jref user's machine and they lose hope.
1. This worked solely because the partition involved is ext2 ( elderly unshakable server). If it had been ext3 the chances of success approach nil due to it's alternate method of operation. (As I have found out through several hours of unwanted research)
2.Secondly, system and user partitions were separate (made so shortly after I came to power as it happens <.<). Had they not been, the files would have been almost immediately overwritten by usual system operation.
3. thanks to 2. I was able to disconnect the partition without warping the IRC and FTP server that runs off the machine.
4. I used testdisk and photorec in roughly equal measure. They conveniently work in Windows too.
Not exactly the sort of thing to interest normal folk here, but maybe someone will remember these in their hour of need, as i've been there without moral, technical and emotional support and wouldn't wish it on a furry.
That is all <.<
