Lost Files

[potat0]

I screwed up and now I am in a bad spot.  I hope someone can help me.  I am pretty new to
Linux.  I am just taking my first course and setup a laptop with Fedora Core 10 and
Windows Vista dual booting.

Because of so many bugs and my lack of expertise my wife wanted me to move all of her
OpenOffice.org files from the Linux operating system to Vista.  So I thought I could just
move everything from her home directory to the /media/disk directory and all would be
good.

Well, from the command prompt I created a folder in /media/disk and moved everything
there.  Then I booted into Vista and the folder wasn't there.  I thought Windows maybe
can't read the directory created by Linux so I went back to Linux and to my surprise
it was missing from there too!  Now it's nowhere to be found and I'm afraid
everything she had is lost.  Does anyone know of a way I can retrieve those files?

Thank you,
Jeremy


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[Tim]

On Fri, 2009-04-24 at 08:35 +0200, jolmstead wrote:
>  and my lack of expertise my wife wanted me to move all of her
>  OpenOffice.org files from the Linux operating system to Vista.  So I
>  thought I could just move everything from her home directory to
>  the /media/disk directory and all would be good.
>   
You're going to have to say what /media/disk refers to.  A plugged in
hard drive, flash drive, or some internal drive.

The /media directory is used to mount removable/temporary media in, with
the mounted media becoming a sub-directory inside it.  e.g. If I plugged
in a USB flash drive, it might be /media/usbdisk.  With some media is
not written to until you unmount it, at that point the contents are
written, *then* it is actually unmounted.  If you interrupt that
process, the files aren't written.

If you create a directory inside /media when there isn't actually any
media mounted in there, or using a name that's different from any
mounted media, you've just created an ordinary directory inside /media
on the file tree.  Any files inside it will still be there.

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[potat0]

I don't think I was clear enough on this, but the /media/disk location was actually
the Windows Vista partition.  And, like I said, from the command prompt I created a folder
in the root C: drive (which was /media/disk) and then copied everything there.  I verified
every thing was there from the command prompt using ls and then removed it from the
/home/user folder.  It wasn't until I booted into Vista that the data appeared to be
lost.  Nothing was every interrupted and I did a standard shut down and restart to get to
Vista.  Does this change anything or is all hope lost?

Thanks,
Jeremy


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[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 24 April 2009, jolmstead wrote:
> I don't think I was clear enough on this, but the /media/disk
> location was
>  actually the Windows Vista partition.  And, like I said, from the command
>  prompt I created a folder in the root C: drive (which was /media/disk) and
>  then copied everything there.  I verified every thing was there from the
>  command prompt using ls and then removed it from the /home/user folder.  It
>  wasn't until I booted into Vista that the data appeared to be lost. 
>  Nothing was every interrupted and I did a standard shut down and restart to
>  get to Vista.  Does this change anything or is all hope lost?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeremy
>  
I'm by no means a vista expert here as I generally don't touch windows with
a 
20 foot fiberglass pole.  I have one xp partition on a lappy I haven't booted 
in nearly a year, so I'll shut up as I'm NOT being helpful.

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Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Take a lesson from the whale; the only time he gets speared is when he
raises to spout.

[Robert Nichols]

jolmstead wrote:
>  I don't think I was clear enough on this, but the /media/disk
> location was
>  actually the Windows Vista partition.  And, like I said, from the command
>  prompt I created a folder in the root C: drive (which was /media/disk) and
>  then copied everything there.  I verified every thing was there from the
>  command prompt using ls and then removed it from the /home/user folder.  It
>  wasn't until I booted into Vista that the data appeared to be lost.  Nothing
>  was every interrupted and I did a standard shut down and restart to get to
>  Vista.  Does this change anything or is all hope lost? 
/media/disk is usually a mount point that is dynamically created when an
external drive with an unlabeled partition is hotplugged, so it's a fairly
unusual location for mounting a partition on an internal disk.  Presumably,
you manually created the directory and mounted the Vista partition there.
If you did any of that wrong, I can think of a couple of possibilities:

   a) The Vista partition wasn't actually mounted when you did the copy.
      In that case you should be able to unmount anything currently on
      /media/disk and then see your files in the now exposed directory.
      (I'm really hoping you didn't manually delete that directory.  Doing
      "rm -rf /media/disk" or using File Manager to delete the directory
      would blow everything away.)

   b) You accidentally mounted something other than the Vista partition
      there, in which case your missing files are on some other disk
      partition.

-- 
Bob Nichols     "NOSPAM" is really part of my email address.
                 Do NOT delete it.

[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2009-04-24 at 13:14 -0500, Robert Nichols wrote:
>  jolmstead wrote:
>  > I don't think I was clear enough on this, but the /media/disk location was
>  > actually the Windows Vista partition.  And, like I said, from the command
>  > prompt I created a folder in the root C: drive (which was /media/disk) and
>  > then copied everything there.  I verified every thing was there from the
>  > command prompt using ls and then removed it from the /home/user folder.  It
>  > wasn't until I booted into Vista that the data appeared to be lost.  Nothing
>  > was every interrupted and I did a standard shut down and restart to get to
>  > Vista.  Does this change anything or is all hope lost?
>  
>  /media/disk is usually a mount point that is dynamically created when an
>  external drive with an unlabeled partition is hotplugged, so it's a fairly
>  unusual location for mounting a partition on an internal disk.  Presumably,
>  you manually created the directory and mounted the Vista partition there.
>  If you did any of that wrong, I can think of a couple of possibilities:
>  
>     a) The Vista partition wasn't actually mounted when you did the copy.
>        In that case you should be able to unmount anything currently on
>        /media/disk and then see your files in the now exposed directory.
>        (I'm really hoping you didn't manually delete that directory.  Doing
>        "rm -rf /media/disk" or using File Manager to delete the directory
>        would blow everything away.)
>  
>     b) You accidentally mounted something other than the Vista partition
>        there, in which case your missing files are on some other disk
>        partition. 
I am not a Vista expert but with my double booted XP - Linux the disk
mouted with the Windows XP stuff is muted on /media/disk without help
from me.
>  
>  ======================================================================= Suicide is the
> sincerest form of self-criticism. -- Donald Kaul
> ======================================================================= Aaron Konstam
> telephone: [phone] e-mail: akonstam(a)sbcglobal.net

[Suvayu Ali]

2009/4/24 Robert Nichols <rnicholsNOSPAM(a)comcast.net&gt;:
>  jolmstead wrote:
> >
> > I don't think I was clear enough on this, but the /media/disk location was
> > actually the Windows Vista partition.  And, like I said, from the command
> > prompt I created a folder in the root C: drive (which was /media/disk) and
> > then copied everything there.  I verified every thing was there from the
> > command prompt using ls and then removed it from the /home/user folder.
> >  It
> > wasn't until I booted into Vista that the data appeared to be lost.
> >  Nothing
> > was every interrupted and I did a standard shut down and restart to get to
> > Vista.  Does this change anything or is all hope lost?
>
>  /media/disk is usually a mount point that is dynamically created when an
>  external drive with an unlabeled partition is hotplugged, so it's a fairly
>  unusual location for mounting a partition on an internal disk.  Presumably,
>  you manually created the directory and mounted the Vista partition there.
>  If you did any of that wrong, I can think of a couple of possibilities:
>  
HAL does that. My XP partition gets mounted without my interference in
/media/label_of_c_drive.

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

[Robin Laing]

jolmstead wrote:
>  I don't think I was clear enough on this, but the /media/disk
>  location was actually the Windows Vista partition.  And, like I said,
>  from the command prompt I created a folder in the root C: drive
>  (which was /media/disk) and then copied everything there.  I verified
>  every thing was there from the command prompt using ls and then
>  removed it from the /home/user folder.  It wasn't until I booted into
>  Vista that the data appeared to be lost.  Nothing was every
>  interrupted and I did a standard shut down and restart to get to
>  Vista.  Does this change anything or is all hope lost?
>  
>  Thanks, Jeremy
>  
>   
Have you copied files this way before with no problems?

I wonder if Vista may have moved the files because they were not 
supposed to be officially there.  All my Vista experiences have been 
disasters.

Look for undelete tools for Vista as well.

Another thing that I have happend in the past, is that the 
drive/partition wasn't mounted and I created the directories and moved 
files.  When the partition is mounted, the files are still existant but 
not visible.  Boot into Linux and make sure that the Vista partition is 
not mounted and check again.

I don't think udev or hal will delete files from /media.



-- 
Robin Laing

[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2009-04-24 at 16:31 +0930, Tim wrote:
>  On Fri, 2009-04-24 at 08:35 +0200, jolmstead wrote:
>  > and my lack of expertise my wife wanted me to move all of her
>  > OpenOffice.org files from the Linux operating system to Vista.  So I
>  > thought I could just move everything from her home directory to
>  > the /media/disk directory and all would be good.
>  > 
>  You're going to have to say what /media/disk refers to.  A plugged in
>  hard drive, flash drive, or some internal drive. 
In this case /media/disk is the
part of the Windows disk available to
the Linux user. I have the same thing on my machine. moving rather than
copying was the mistake. But the files should be in subdirectories owned
by his wife. Or maybe since he did not have formal access to his wife's
directories they went into the bit bucket which would be too bad.
>  
>  The /media directory is used to mount removable/temporary media in, with
>  the mounted media becoming a sub-directory inside it.  e.g. If I plugged
>  in a USB flash drive, it might be /media/usbdisk.  With some media is
>  not written to until you unmount it, at that point the contents are
>  written, *then* it is actually unmounted.  If you interrupt that
>  process, the files aren't written.
>  
>  If you create a directory inside /media when there isn't actually any
>  media mounted in there, or using a name that's different from any
>  mounted media, you've just created an ordinary directory inside /media
>  on the file tree.  Any files inside it will still be there.
>  
>  -- 
>  [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r
>  2.6.27.21-78.2.41.fc9.i686
>  
>  Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
>  read messages from the public lists.
>  
>  
>   
--
=======================================================================
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=======================================================================
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[Gene Heskett]

On Friday 24 April 2009, jolmstead wrote:
> I screwed up and now I am in a bad spot.  I hope someone can help me. 
> I am
>  pretty new to Linux.  I am just taking my first course and setup a laptop
>  with Fedora Core 10 and Windows Vista dual booting.
>
> Because of so many bugs and my lack of expertise my wife wanted me to move
>  all of her OpenOffice.org files from the Linux operating system to Vista. 
>  So I thought I could just move everything from her home directory to the
>  /media/disk directory and all would be good.
>
> Well, from the command prompt I created a folder in /media/disk and moved
>  everything there.  Then I booted into Vista and the folder wasn't there.  I
>  thought Windows maybe can't read the directory created by Linux so I went
>  back to Linux and to my surprise it was missing from there too!  Now it's
>  nowhere to be found and I'm afraid everything she had is lost.  Does anyone
>  know of a way I can retrieve those files? 
I don't believe there is, unless someone has written an undelete for ext3.

/media is generally used as a mount point, and you must have a disk actually 
mounted there for the files to be non-volatile.  I just did a similar thing 
with a new 1 TB disk, I thought I had it mounted to /mnt/amandatapes-1-T and 
ran my initialize script, then umounted it and mounted it where it really 
goes.  Didn't work, it must not have been mounted correctly.  Fortunately, 
there was nothing precious lost.

Basically, one should have a little paranoia and copy, then verify the copy is 
there before deleting the originals.  Regardless of the OS.

> Thank you,
> Jeremy
>
>
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-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
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[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2009-04-24 at 06:11 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
>  On Friday 24 April 2009, jolmstead wrote:
>  >I screwed up and now I am in a bad spot.  I hope someone can help me.  I am
>  > pretty new to Linux.  I am just taking my first course and setup a laptop
>  > with Fedora Core 10 and Windows Vista dual booting.
>  >
>  >Because of so many bugs and my lack of expertise my wife wanted me to move
>  > all of her OpenOffice.org files from the Linux operating system to Vista. 
>  > So I thought I could just move everything from her home directory to the
>  > /media/disk directory and all would be good.
>  >
>  >Well, from the command prompt I created a folder in /media/disk and moved
>  > everything there.  Then I booted into Vista and the folder wasn't there.  I
>  > thought Windows maybe can't read the directory created by Linux so I went
>  > back to Linux and to my surprise it was missing from there too!  Now it's
>  > nowhere to be found and I'm afraid everything she had is lost.  Does anyone
>  > know of a way I can retrieve those files?
>  
>  I don't believe there is, unless someone has written an undelete for ext3.
There is a way to undelete ext2 and ext3 files. It is called sleuthkit.
It is a collection of programs whose operation is described in the
current issue (may 2009) of Linux Journal in an article," When Disaster
Strikes: Attack of the rm Command", by Kyle Rankin on page 30.

Since it is the current issue even non-subscribers can probably see it
on the Linux Journal web site.
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=======================================================================
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=======================================================================
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