ufs recovery

[Polytropon]

On Sun, 8 Sep 2013 11:39:08 +0200, Laszlo Danielisz wrote:
> Hi Frank,
> 
> Thank you very much for the information!
> Meanwhile I've found this software: http://www.ufsexplorer.com/, I'm going to give a try.

That program was on my "famous list of recovery tools for
futile attempts". :-)

I may say that I have the same problem (of unclear origin).
Files have been removed, but the assumption that the data
could still be somewhere is alive. In such situations, you
would usually have two choices:

1. money

Get as much money as you can. You'll need it. Several 1000
euro / dollar / local currency will buy you service at a
company specialized in recovery. There is no guarantee they
will be successful.

2. time

You invest time in learning how UFS works. There are many
excellent articles (especially the authoritative one by
M. K. McKusick). You try out different tools (with different
scope). If you are lucky, you get your data back. (I was
lucky once, got my data back!)

There are _many_ good tools around. Most of them are free,
so you don't need to invest massive amounts of money in a
repeating "trial & error" process.



Allow me to repeat my list (which gets a little bit modified
each time I post it to this list):

OS tools:

	fetch -rR <device>
	recoverdisk

Ports collection:

	ddrescue
	dd_rescue	<- use this to create images to work with
	magicrescue
	testdisk	<- restores content
	recoverjpeg
	foremost
	photorec
	ffs2recov
	scan_ffs
	tsk		<- The Sleuth Kit
		fls
		dls
		ils
		autopsy

There are some commercial tools worth mentioning: "UFS Explorer"
can be run in wine. It probably won't restore your data, but it
can be used to determine if there is something to restore. Also
consider "R-Studio" and "R-Studio Emergency" (live CD). Those
offer free versions that can be used for testing.

Finally, I'd like to mention The Sleuth Kit. It's one of the
most powerful toolsets, also used in forensics and investigation.

As I said, I ran into a similar problem (files deleted). Maybe
you can find this discussion thread in the archives and gain
some more inspiration from it. A massive data loss (meanwhile
cured!) brought me to this list, so I continue to spread my
experience about recovery when needed. :-)



Good luck!



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...