Data Recovery

[Christian Walther]

I don't think that rsync can cope with hardlinks.
Best way to do a "backup" like this is:

tar -clf - / | ( cd /ad2 ; tar -xf - )

The "-l" flag will stay on the specified filesystem. If you forget
this option tar (and any other command, even cp and rsync with their
respective option) will copy /ad2 into itself, e.g. /ad2/ad2, which
might lead to a kind of recursion.


BTW: No, there isn't any tool that might recover from a desaster like
the one you specified. Either the files you describe as being "fried"
have either been overwritten with some other content, or changed in
any other way. You need a backup to recover from this. ;)