Deleted File Recovery

Q

quarkrad

Member
I'm trying to see if I can recover a deleted file. I have taken my hd out of the hummy and connected into my pc (I run mainly Linux but also have Win 10). I have tried using Photorec but I'm not sure if it can 'see' the files. Is it that the hummy/FoxT2 records it files/movies as .M2TC files? If this is the case there probably isn't any file recovery software that can read .M2TC, or is there? Thanks.
 
It is no help at this stage but with the customised firmware you can install the Undelete package which keeps deleted recordings in the Dustbin for a number of days which makes it trivial to recover accidentally deleted files.
 
The custom firmware include the extundelete utility which can sometimes undelete files if you're quick. Best to mount the file system read only as soon as possible.
 
quarkrad said:
I'm trying to see if I can recover a deleted file. I have taken my hd out of the hummy and connected into my pc (I run mainly Linux but also have Win 10). I have tried using Photorec but I'm not sure if it can 'see' the files. Is it that the hummy/FoxT2 records it files/movies as .M2TC files? If this is the case there probably isn't any file recovery software that can read .M2TC, or is there? Thanks.
Click to expand...
I think you mean M2TS format. Yes, but the file is named .ts, and bear in mind:
  1. Unless you decrypted it, the file is not readable as M2TS anyway;
  2. If it has not been decrypted, you will also need to recover the .hmt file that goes with the .ts (although we can manage without it, if necessary);
  3. The disk format is Ext3.
The first process of file recovery is to simply go through the directory structures looking for entries marked as deleted (but otherwise unchanged) and reverse the marking. In the case of DOS it was a change to the first character of the file name. No doubt the undelete tool af123 mentioned above does something similar for Ext3.

More sophisticated file recovery relies on recognising the data that is still held in "unoccupied" disk sectors, and piecing them together into a file again. The sectors can be spread across the disk, and in practically any order, although in this situation it is probably in large contiguous blocks. Nonetheless, the data will look essentially random on inspection, and the effort required to reconstruct a video file from de-allocated sectors is going to be considerable. If you have recorded anything at all after the desired recording was deleted, you can pretty much forget it.

Easy to be wise in hindsight, but we have the custom firmware undelete utility for times such as this - deleted recordings go to a recycle bin instead of being immediately de-allocated, and can be recovered from the bin if necessary (and in time).
 
Unfortunately for me I deleted the film from the Deleted Folder so I'm guessing it is now somewhere on the hard disk - assuming it has not been overwritten (yet). From what Black Holes says, even if I did see all the different files, it seems putting together the relevant bits is not practical. On another note - I could not see the extundelete utility. I Updated my Package List from the Internet but all there is listed under 'e' is e2fsprogs, epgpatch and expat.
 
It won't be a package - it will be a command line utility you need to run from a console session in Maintenance Mode.
 
Is there a dedicated thread for requesting programs(?) - I cannot see one. The program I lost is called All is Lost starting Robert Redford. (After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face).
 
quarkrad said:
Is there a dedicated thread for requesting programs(?) - I cannot see one.
Click to expand...
There isn't, but there could be.
quarkrad said:
The program I lost is called All is Lost starting Robert Redford. (After a collision with a shipping container at sea, a resourceful sailor finds himself, despite all efforts to the contrary, staring his mortality in the face).
Click to expand...
What I do in situations like this is put a persistent search on the RS web site - most things turn up (again) sooner or later. I wouldn't go to the cinema to see Monuments Men, but an RS search pinged me an email to say it was on TV less than a year later.
 
Black Hole said:
It won't be a package - it will be a command line utility you need to run from a console session in Maintenance Mode.
Click to expand...
Right - sorry, didn't get back online until this morning.

If you immediately shut down, reboot to maintenance mode and remount the video partition as read-only, you have a chance of recovery:

Code: 
... maintenance mode shell ...
humax# mount -o remount,ro /dev/sda2
humax# /sbin/extundelete --restore-all /dev/sda2
 
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