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php12345
Asked: 2018-03-15 04:30:15 +0800 CST

How to undelete files and folders that have been deleted using shift+delete

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I'm using Ubuntu 16.04. I mistakenly shift+deleted files and folders in my Documents folder. I'm trying to use extundelete utility but which is not helping me.

I don't know which sda* to be used. Please help me out with this.

$ sudo extundelete --restore-all --after $(date -d "-2 hours" +%s) /dev/sda

which shows the following output:

Only show and process deleted entries if they are deleted on or after 1521022350 and before 9223372036854775807.

extundelete: Bad magic number in super-block when trying to open filesystem /dev/sda

When I do 

$ sudo fdisk -l

it shows the following:

screenshot

Please help me out how to recover data using extundelete

ext4 data-recovery undelete

2 Answers

  1. sda is the whole drive, you should use sda5 as this appears to be your OS-partition. So if you modify your command to

    sudo extundelete --restore-all --after $(date -d "-2 hours" +%s) /dev/sda5

    it should work as you expect.

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  2. It looks like you're trying to use extundelete on a mounted partition. Rather, you should use a Ubuntu Live DVD or USB to boot, install extundelete in the live system, and then use it on the unmounted /dev/sda5 partition.

    You'll also need some other media (another USB stick will do) to restore those deleted files to.

    This guide should walk you through it: The Magic of Extundelete

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