Thanks for the tip. I nosed around for several hours on the HOWTO's mini-HOWTOs, the Red Hat site, a couple of ext3 sites, etc. and got nowhere. Recovering deleted files is a possibility (there's a program 'recover' but its pretty tedious...uses debugfs...and only works on ext2 fs's). The EXT3 filesystem seems to be a strange beast. Some utilities that work on EXT2 systems will access EXT3 files, some won't.
In any case there's a program 'e2fsck', part of the e2fsprogs, that apparently did the trick. The directory was never erased (which is what I thought...see my first message) but the filesystem must have been corrupted during the copy. (BTW, in my perusal of the 'literature' I found a number of folks with ext3 file corruption problems and inability to recover.) You have to run it thus: "e2fsck -fy /dev/hdXX" where the 'f' forces the check and 'y' makes the check non-interactive. All the files are there and I'm a happy camper! Bottom line: don't get into the box I did...back up first. Terry Smith Cape Cod USA On Fri, 2002-04-12 at 08:29, Frans Ketelaars wrote: > file:/usr/share/doc/mandrake/en/ref.html/ts-deleted-files-recovery.html > > It's about ext2, but since ext3 is build upon ext2 IIUC _maybe_ it's of > some use. Good luck! > > On 11 Apr 2002 21:11:54 -0400 > Terry Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Short ver.: Any way to recover a deleted directory on a ext3 partition? > > > > Details: Although I've remained subscribed to this list, over the last 6 > > weeks I've been running a RH 7.2 distro off of my hdb drive. BOO! > > > > Last night, after downloading the new Mandrake 8.2 and burning 3 cds I > > installed 8.2 on my hda (sharing with windows). As customary I did a > > 'clean install' but didn't reformat my /home directory (on hda). > > > > Installation went perfect, everything's configured, the new CUPS not > > only recognized my printer (HP Officejet) but recognized and installed > > software for the built-in scanner. YAY! > > > > But all my personal files, emails, downloads, tarballs, rpms and other > > goodies I've picked up over the last month are over on the hdb /home > > directory. > > > > I had backed up the /etc directory on hda (the old drive with Mandrake > > 8.1) but didn't backup /home on hdb as I didn't have any intention of > > overwriting it, moving it, etc. BAD! > > > > So now happily playing with my new 8.2 I figure I better access all my > > /home files on hdb. I modify /etc/fstab to pick up the hdb2 partition > > but name it 'rh_one'. I mkdir 'rh_one', do the mount and everything's > > there. YAY! > > > > Now things go downhill. I decide I want to rename the dir 'rh_one' to > > 'rh_home' so I use the mv command. It apparently copies everything from > > rh_one to rh_home. I check 'rh_home'. Everything looks OK. I do a 'rmdir > > rh_one'. BOO! All the files that were on hdb /home are gone! > > > > I guess if someone could tell me where I went wrong I'd appreciate it. > > But the real question is "Can I recover the directory"? I was using the > > ext3 journaling filesystem so I would think that there is some > > possibility, but frankly don't have a clue on how to proceed. > > > > I've got a backup that's a couple of weeks old and there's nothing > > hugely important but it would sure be nice to have those files back. > > > > Can it be done? > > > > TIA. > > > > '/home' less in Cape Cod USA > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > -Frans > > ---- > > Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? > Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com