Destructive Deleting - Is there any way back?

Hello

I have just watched all the folders in My Videos disappear into my [Deleted Items] folder.

I wasn't paying attention and I wasn't too concerned as I thought I'd be able to watch them from there.

Whilst I wasn't paying attention, these folders were deleted from the [Deleted Items] folder and the non-folder items have replaced them.

These don't appear to be being deleted from the [Deleted Items] folder.

Is there any way to recover the deleted folders I've lost?

Any help gratefully received.
Web interface version: 1.0.7-7​
Custom firmware version: 2.15 (build 1496)​
Humax Version: 1.02.32​
 
I recommend you still do it.

If anyone else has this problem, don't just sit there watching it - do something! (even if the "something" is turning it off at the mains.)
 
Hi BH.

I followed your recommendation and here is the PuTTY printout.

Code:
Are you sure you wish to run the hard disk checker? [Y/N] y
Running /var/lib/humaxtv_backup/mod/fix-disk
Custom firmware version 2.15
 
 
Checking disk sda
 
Unmounted /dev/sda1
Unmounted /dev/sda2
Unmounted /dev/sda3
 
Running short disk self test
 
No pending sectors found - skipping sector repair
Using superblock 0 on sda1
Using superblock 0 on sda2
Using superblock 0 on sda3
 
 
Checking partition /dev/sda3...
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
/lost+found not found.  Create? yes
 
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
 
/dev/sda3: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/sda3: 13/655776 files (0.0% non-contiguous), 342436/2622611 blocks
 
Checking partition /dev/sda1...
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
/lost+found not found.  Create? yes
 
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
 
/dev/sda1: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
/dev/sda1: 15/65808 files (13.3% non-contiguous), 14336/263064 blocks
 
Creating swap file...
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 1073737728 bytes
UUID=e918e2fb-8e3e-4c64-a90f-8c355689649c
 
Checking partition /dev/sda2...
e2fsck 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
/lost+found not found.  Create? yes
 
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information
 
hmx_int_stor: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****
hmx_int_stor: 2074/29860704 files (5.5% non-contiguous), 45216160/119209984 blocks
Removing extra swap space.
Are you having problems with a delete loop? [Y/N]: y
 
Finished

To my untrained eye that looks OK.

Is there anything there I should worry about?
 
The key is in the last bit. The delete loop problem is not a file system fault as such, it's the HDR-FOX firmware that gets into an anomalous state, but replying "y" to the delete loop question is the only fix for it short of a Humax reformat.
 
@af123:

IIRC the delete loop is triggered by a file being present or something... is the fix-disk process the right place for this? Is the file locked so that it could not be removed except in maintenance mode? Maybe a separate option in the maintenance mode menu?

On the other hand, maybe it's something the CF could maintain a constant watch for and intervene immediately, or if it can't then do so on the next boot?
 
Yes, it would be nice if we could have an emergency button, say in Diag/Utilities that ran a script containing "rm -f /mnt/hd1/filebglastop.dat" followed by "reboot" rather than having to go into Maintenance Mode and running fix-disk. The file is on the hd1 partition so it's unlikely this would have gone read-only, even if the hd2 partition which contains the media folder has.
 
If I recall, "testdisk" utility from SystemRescueCD and maybe another utility "photorec" might be able to recover deleted files as long as they are not over-written. I guess you'll need to get the disk out and attached to another PC via some means if you want to recover files.

Hope that helps,

YellowShed
 
I played with compiling extundelete on the Humax, but the dependencies killed it.
I dunno if anyone with a proper cross-compiler development environment thinks it's worth looking at.
I haven't got one and don't know how to set one up (without spending inordinate amounts of time researching it).
 
In my opinion, the effort required to even attempt recovery of deleted files isn't justified - it's only telly. Material of personal value should be archived elsewhere anyway (there is always the chance of physical disk failure, which would be impossible - or at least extremely expensive - to recover).
 
Don't you back up your computer drives either then? I know - you're being picky about my use of "archive".
 
I played with compiling extundelete on the Humax, but the dependencies killed it.
I dunno if anyone with a proper cross-compiler development environment thinks it's worth looking at.
I haven't got one and don't know how to set one up (without spending inordinate amounts of time researching it).
I've compiled it and could include it with CFW 3.00; it's fairly small. As an experiment, I've just tried it on my video partition in maintenance mode (having re-mounted the video partition read-only). It wasn't successful in recovering anything much though. I think its use would be limited, particularly given the size of these video files.

Code:
humax# /mod/extundelete /dev/sda2 --restore-all
NOTICE: Extended attributes are not restored.
Loading filesystem metadata ...
14817 groups loaded.
Loading journal descriptors ... 30342 descriptors loaded.
Searching for recoverable inodes in directory / ...
7 recoverable inodes found.
Looking through the directory structure for deleted files ...
2 recoverable inodes still lost.
Unable to restore inode 584070 (file.584070): Space has been reallocated.

It recovered:
Code:
RECOVERED_FILES/
RECOVERED_FILES/file.339212
RECOVERED_FILES/Tsr
RECOVERED_FILES/Tsr/0.hmt
RECOVERED_FILES/mod
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/monitor
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/monitor/monitor.db-journal
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/var
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/var/opkg
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/var/opkg/tmp
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/etc
RECOVERED_FILES/mod/etc/tvdiary.db-journal
RECOVERED_FILES/dms_cds.db-journal
 
I've compiled it and could include it with CFW 3.00; it's fairly small. As an experiment, I've just tried it on my video partition in maintenance mode (having re-mounted the video partition read-only). It wasn't successful in recovering anything much though. I think its use would be limited, particularly given the size of these video files.
Oh well, you never know whether something's going to be useful or not until you try it... thanks anyway.
 
I can't match the technical talk, but I came back to state that not all files were deleted.

All folders and their contents were deleted but single programme recordings were moved to the [Deleted Items] folder and then left alone.

I hope this may be of use.
 
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