Recover Deleted Files?

[Daveyuk]

I don't know if it was me, or the Humax, but when I went to it yesterday, all programme folders had disappeared, except 'Deleted'. All the single programmes, ie not in series or otherwise put into folders, were still there. Whatever the cause, can I recover the lost programmes? They are not in the Deleted folder, and the used/unused display confirms that there is now a lot of free space.
Luckily, important files were backed up, but there were still many programmes that I would like to watch before deleting them at my decision.
I use the CF, and I can Telnet in with no problem.

 

[prpr]

I suspect there is more to this than you're telling us, as things don't just disappear by themselves.
The answer is "no" though.

 

[/df]

Agreed, but there are possible ways forward, probably not worthwhile for "only telly".

If PEBRAS (problem exists between remote and sofa) is excluded, one possible way for this to happen is file system damage: eg the disk blocks storing the Video directory have gone bad, or some unexpected system behaviour has overwritten it.

Supposing that there were very precious files to be recovered:

• unplug the whole thing ASAP
• remove and image the disk (using some other system)
• put the disk back and run fixdisk

If that doesn't result in files being recovered, either where expected or in the lost+found directory, make a copy of the saved disk image and see what you can do with a tool like ddrescue.

 

[Daveyuk]

Agreed, but there are possible ways forward, probably not worthwhile for "only telly".

If PEBRAS (problem exists between remote and sofa) is excluded, one possible way for this to happen is file system damage: eg the disk blocks storing the Video directory have gone bad, or some unexpected system behaviour has overwritten it.

Supposing that there were very precious files to be recovered:

• unplug the whole thing ASAP
• remove and image the disk (using some other system)
• put the disk back and run fixdisk

If that doesn't result in files being recovered, either where expected or in the lost+found directory, make a copy of the saved disk image and see what you can do with a tool like ddrescue.

It is certainly possible that it was a case of bad fingering, although not for sure. I had been doing some HDD housekeeping, and I might have deleted the wrong set of files. I will run fixdisk, but if that does not do anything, then I will just move on.
Thanks for the reply.

 

[Black Hole]

I had been doing some HDD housekeeping

Now we get the picture!

However, if (as implied above) you have the undelete package installed, you would not be able to lose these recordings except by deleting them via FTP, NFS, or SMB (or going into Deleted Items and deleting them there).

 

[Daveyuk]

My thinking is that I probably accidentally selected 'All' for deletion, and the 'Deleted' folder did not accept the large volume of files sent to it. Whatever, I performed a 'fixdisk' procedure, which reported no problems, and also did not restore anything, so I will now move on, and close this down, as I will never know for sure what happened, and I cannot recover from it.
So I thank everyone who responded, and wish you all a happy Christmas.

 

[Black Hole]

My thinking is that I probably accidentally selected 'All' for deletion, and the 'Deleted' folder did not accept the large volume of files sent to it.

Not possible. With the undelete package, "delete" is actually "move". No data gets moved, just the file system indexes get updated so that the actual data appears at a different place in the directory structure. This is a very quick operation, whereas actual deletion is quite slow.

Of course, the Deleted Items will proceed to empty on an increasing desperation when available space is low.

 

[bottletop]

My thinking is that I probably accidentally selected 'All' for deletion, and the 'Deleted' folder did not accept the large volume of files sent to it. Whatever, I performed a 'fixdisk' procedure, which reported no problems, and also did not restore anything, so I will now move on, and close this down, as I will never know for sure what happened, and I cannot recover from it.
So I thank everyone who responded, and wish you all a happy Christmas.

The odd thing is that 'select all' on the remote literally does that. Both folders/directories and files. So it's difficult to guess what actually happened.

 

[Daveyuk]

Yes it is, and as I clearly cannot recover the lost files, at least without possibly doing some major work, I am now moving on. At least the question of which programme to watch has been considerably simplified.
A Happy Christmas to All.

 

[/df]

We can observe a minute's silence for the lost files, then.

 

[Daveyuk]

"..................................................................................................................."

 

[SemiRamis]

Yes it is, and as I clearly cannot recover the lost files, at least without possibly doing some major work, I am now moving on. At least the question of which programme to watch has been considerably simplified.
A Happy Christmas to All.

If you tell us which of these files you loved most some of us might have them and give them to you.

 

[Daveyuk]

As I say, I am happy to move on. and not cry over spilt electrons. But I thank you for the offer. The ones that I regret losing most are several of the 'Discovering XXX' series, but I would be hard-pressed to list them from memory, I had edited the list as it grew, to be watched at a later date, and did not back them up, as I did not know if they were worth keeping until I had watched them. There were also a couple of Michael Portillo in Canada programmes, describing places and areas that I have been to and remember, but I can probably find them on iPlayer.
Thanks anyway.

 

[MikeSh]

describing places and areas that I have been to and remember,

This goes to something I've wondered for some years ... If you need photos or whatever to remember places you've been or things you've done, are you then remembering those memories or just planting those recorded images where you think you remember?

These days I really only take pictures or video to potentially show other people what I experienced. If it's 'just' something I'm enjoying I prefer to absorb that moment rather than being distracted from it by dicking around trying to capture it, like parents at school plays. If I forget it later then it wasn't really that special.

That said, I do record programmes relating to places I've been, but I don't keep them after viewing or worry much about losing them. What I remember, or don't, is trumps.

 

[trog]

This goes to something I've wondered for some years ... If you need photos or whatever to remember places you've been or things you've done, are you then remembering those memories or just planting those recorded images where you think you remember?

These days I really only take pictures or video to potentially show other people what I experienced. If it's 'just' something I'm enjoying I prefer to absorb that moment rather than being distracted from it by dicking around trying to capture it, like parents at school plays. If I forget it later then it wasn't really that special.

That said, I do record programmes relating to places I've been, but I don't keep them after viewing or worry much about losing them. What I remember, or don't, is trumps.

I am quite the opposite. I take pictures and videos purely for myself many of which would be of no interest to anyone but me. We remember major events but the finer details fade over time and those pictures and videos can trigger memories from deep in our subconscious and even throw up a few surprises that we did not see at the time of taking.

 

[SemiRamis]

As I say, I am happy to move on. and not cry over spilt electrons. But I thank you for the offer. The ones that I regret losing most are several of the 'Discovering XXX' series, but I would be hard-pressed to list them from memory, I had edited the list as it grew, to be watched at a later date, and did not back them up, as I did not know if they were worth keeping until I had watched them. There were also a couple of Michael Portillo in Canada programmes, describing places and areas that I have been to and remember, but I can probably find them on iPlayer.
Thanks anyway.

These recordings will be found in the Recent Activity (reverse order) log on the rs homepage.

 

[MymsMan]

These recordings will be found in the Recent Activity (reverse order) log on the rs homepage.

On my system RS Recent Activity goes back no further than 07/12/2023
You may have more data in activity.log and its archives on the Humax depending of the how much you have chosen to keep on the Setting page and assuming the logs weren't included in the "housekeeping"