Is It Possible to 'undelete'?

golfcity

New Member
Hello,
I was housekeeping HDR files via W7 Explorer on PC. I noticed that within the Media folder in the Humax root directory, there were duplicate Music/Photo/Video folders (also Channels/opt/sda1 folders). This video folder contained the same files as in the Video folder in the root directory. I started to delete the set in the Media/video directory. To my horror, the files in the main Video directory slao deleted. Firstly I'm not sure why there is this 'apparent' duplication and further if I can undelete or retrieve the files from a recycle bin somewhere. I have not closed down the Humax or PC. I noticed that photos have also bee replicated (or seemingly so) i.e they appear in the Main photo directory and the photo directory within the Media directory. Unfortunately I have deleted some good stuff which would be good to recover.
Thanks for any advice.
 
In Windows when you delete a file all you do is change a few bytes that tell the file system where the file locations are, the data is still there. The recycle bin simply restores the few bytes of missing data. This is why deletions in Windows appear to happen instantly. The Foxsat uses a Linux operating system, when you delete a file it is really deleted, that's why the process is very slow. Not sure how you got multiple links to the same files (At a guess it's down to the way you mapped the folders in windows and created multiple links to the same content).

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news I doubt you can get the content back.
 
Thanks for the rapid response, Graham. I'll have to backup what's left on the Humax and straighten out the File tree. It seems it could be worth doing a factory reset, then re-installing the custom firmware and re-loading the media files? Or should I delete the additional folders that have 'appeared' in the Media folder?
 
Be very careful about deleting what appear to be duplicate files, In Linux it is possible to have one set of files that appear to be in two or more folders on a drive, however this is because these files have multiple 'paths' a bit like a book having a table of contents that shows chapter four on page 95 and chapter twenty-four on page 95, if you remove chapter four you are also removing chapter twenty-four. As stated, unlike Windows deleted files which remain on the drive until the space they occupy is needed, in Linux the files are pretty much unrecoverable
 
deleted.

[This was originally a longish post detailing the behaviour of links, both symbolic and hard-links, in UNIX operating systems, intended to correct a potentially misleading comment above (well, it misled me), but was considered to be clouding the main issue, so I've deleted it]
 
It is indeed an old post. I believe what Ezra was referring to were symbolic links pointing to a folder. Ezra explained this quite well at the time and was not misleading at all even if the analogy wasn't 100% accurate. Your post about hard links merely serves to cloud the issue.
On the Foxsat HDR the real folder /mnt/hd3/Video can also be accessed via the symbolic link Video -> /mnt/hd3/Video which resides in the /media folder, so that the Video folder can be accessed via /media/Video. No media created by the HDR itself ever has more than one hard link, unless a user has specifically created another one himself, which in this particular case is extremely unlikely.
 
OK. Apols for that. It still seemed misleading to me: if there are multiple symlinks, deleting one does not affect the other, which is how I read Ezra's post.

I now assume what was meant was that deleting a hark-linked name, or a directory, affects all symlinks to it, obviously, since they are now pointing at nothing.

But again, apologies, I didn't mean to cloud the issue. I've deleted my post, and I'll shuddup in future :)
 
I now assume what was meant was that deleting a hark-linked name, or a directory, affects all symlinks to it, obviously, since they are now pointing at nothing.
Correct, and deleting your post just gives my comment about it, no longer have a point of reference. What was the point in bumping an old thread like this ? The OP's problem has long since been resolved.
Although I'm sure Ezra would have appreciated you pointing out the difference between hard and soft links on 'nix boxes (had you not decided to delete the post, that is) :rolleyes: .
 
The OP issue was resolved, but old threads are often used for reference; well, they are by me, at least. I thought it might be useful information, and to correct what I (mis)read as a possible error, that's all.
 
Edit post 5 to contain some approximation to what you wrote before rather than just "deleted". (yes, I did get the joke)
 
Well, i'm not going to type it all in again - I don't have a copy - and in any case Raydon didn't want me clouding the issue... I'll put in something.
 
The problem with posting on forums is that it is impossible to pitch a message in a way that is acceptable / understandable to all readers, there is little point in trying to explain the difference between symbolic links and hard links to someone who has no idea what you are talking about. I was simply trying to say that it is possible to unintentionally delete a file because the user thinks it is a duplicate when it isn't. In another example, more experienced users can argue the difference between software and firmware 'till the cows come home, but they have to realise that some users don't know the difference and don't want to know the difference, it's all the same to them
BTW
The book chapter / table of contents probably wasn't the best analogy, but . . .
 
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