Re: recover deleted file

This may help? I’ve no experience with it, I just googled it for you. The comp.sources.misc usenet group in volume 17 issue 23 (in 1991) has an undelete program that supposedly works with 4.3BSD — probably won’t work with FreeBSD’s version but if you’re desperate it could be a starting point.
https://www.ufsexplorer.com/solutions/recover-deleted-files-bsd.php

Since you asked for advice, this may just be the nature’s way of telling you you really didn’t need the file. It can be a very “free”ing experience :-)

> On Apr 16, 2022, at 8:03 AM, Sami Halabi <sodynet1@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> okay...
> all seems very time consuming operations!!
> 
> There should be an os "undelete" as happens in NTFS for example.. which is very fast and can be done also with extra tools without a hassle.
> 
> for now I got backup from last day .. caused me a lot of troubles, not say legal ones, but I passed the point to hold the machine down.
> 
> any advice?
> 
> Maybe UFS developer would do a rework so latest deleted inodes would put in a "recycle bin" (maybe with a sysctl or whatever) for say one day (or any other configurable sysctl) and allow to recover quickly or "force delete / empty recycle bin" , rather than delete and give back space immediately for use and destroy possibility to restore.
> 
> my 2 cents.
> 
> Sami
> 
> 
> 
>> On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 5:23 PM Julian H. Stacey <jhs@berklix.com> wrote:
>> > Then I would reboot single user, 
>> > fsck & mount only the partitions the data was Not on.,
>> > dd the partition to recover,
>> > then fsck the partition & mount it, & go multi user,
>> > then I'd make a 2nd copy of the partition with data to recover
>> 
>> Oops. I meant:
>> 
>> ...... I'd make a 2nd copy (with cp) from the 1st image file,
>>        not of course Not a copy of raw decice partition after fsck
>>        has discarded blocks.
>> 
>> The spare 2nd. copy because I've zapped data too often, trying to rescue
>> it, while fumbling with unfamiliar resue tools: its easier to
>> have a play image one can experimentaly try to recover from, &
>> periodicaly while one learns, & that gets in a mess,  one can refresh
>> copy from master to experimental copy.
>> 
>> If any recovery tools want to run on devices, & refuse images in files, use
>>         mdconfig -a -t vnode -f imagefile
>> 
>> I recall FS has journals etc, 
>> Specalists on list fs@
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> -- 
>> Julian Stacey  http://berklix.com/jhs/ http://StolenVotes.UK  
>> Kill / remove Putin to stop him killing & provoking world war.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Sami Halabi
> Information Systems Engineer
> NMS Projects Expert, FreeBSD SysAdmin Expert
> Asterisk Expert