formatted hard disk in linux ext2 files

hk2000

Dear friends

I was very frustrated after my external hard disk was accidentally formatted by TV set top box ,which was in linux ext2FS format and contained .ts and .tv folders. I tried several online data recovery softwares and 3 local data recovery companies in Hong Kong but all failed to recover the folders. A staff in one of the data recovery company told me that the reason for failure was because the folder codes,each was a 8 digits number in 16 bit numericals ,were all deleted,though the data was still present. Hence it is impossible to recover the folders no matter what method or software is employed. Is it true?

I was very depressed after this accident and certainly want to recover the folders as far as possible

Thanks for any help

regards

Simon

woboyle

This is where the lesson "backup early, backup often" is taken to heart... Sorry for your loss. I'm not sure you can recover the folders, but you might be able to recover some of the data, provided you don't write anything further to the disc. There are a couple of utilities you can install and use, depending upon your Linux distribution: ext3undel and e2undel. e2undel is a binary ext2 recovery/undelete tool, and ext3undel is a script that will recover ext2 and ext3 file system data. Whether they work for you or not depends upon what exactly your set-top box did to the file system. If it wasn't and ext2/ext3 file system originally, you are SOL since it would have formatted the drive. If it was, it might have only rewritten the root directory structure of the drive. Without the drive in hand, I cannot tell you more than that.