How to recover lost files in linux with PhotoRec

Recover Lost Files OR Deleted Files with PhotoRec

This quick tutorial will teach you to recover your deleted files in minutes. When you delete a file from your disk, it's like were cutting only the link provided access to this file. If it went directly to see on the disk, the file would be found intact. Warning, the file remains "recoverable" when the operating system was not rewritten to new data on its location. Do not expect to find files very old. So just use software that will go "digging" the hard to find deleted files. I named PHOTORECOVERY.

Note: PHOTORECOVERY also works on Windows and Mac. You can find the archives for Windows and Mac OS on the official site.

PhotoRec is a data recovery program designed to recover lost images from digital camera memory card, hence the name Photo Recovery. It can also recover lost files many, such as video, documents and archives stored on a hard drive or a CD-ROM. PhotoRec ignores the filesystem and goes directly to the underlying data, so it should work even if the filesystem is severely damaged or formatted. PhotoRec is safe to use, it will never attempt to write to your hard drive or other storage medium that you want to retrieve. Recovered files are written to the disk drive where you run PhotoRec. PhotoRec software is totally free multi-platform distributed under the GNU General Public License . PhotoRec is an extension of the application TestDisk , which allows you to recover lost partitions on a wide variety of system files and render drives unmounted removable.

Installation and Getting Started
PhotoRec is a program designed to recover lost images on camera memory cards. Hence the name "Photo Recovery" (abbreviated as PhotoRec). PhotoRec But of course can recover files other than images such as video, text files, etc..
To install this program, nothing very complicated. Type this in console:

Code:

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sudo apt-get install testdisk

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For those who prefer to install from an archive, then can visit their official site and there you can find the archive file.

Note: PHOTORECOVERY has no GUI, everything will then be in console.

To launch the program, open your favorite console and type this:
You have to enter this command in your terminal window.

Code:

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sudo photorec

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Once the program is opened, the following appears:

http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/2729/101075.png

Photorec can not be displayed because the window is too narrow. Just zoom in and see you then see a list of your hard drives:

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/8266/101076.png

Just select a disk drive where your files were deleted and press Enter.

Finding lost files

Once the selected disk, Photorec will ask you which type is the partition:

http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/4388/101080.png

Select [Intel] "if you use Windows or Linux.
cons If you use a Mac, select "[Mac]."
Once this is done, you will have to choose which partition Photorec will search for deleted files.

No, you selected the device (hard drive, USB, camera ...). Here's what appears on screen (you will not have the same score as me):

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/2306/101081.png


Options File
To access the options file, select File Opt next to options, you have that then this appears:

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2306/101081.png

This is a list of all file formats that PhotoRec can recover . To not get unnecessary files, select only or the extension (s) that interest you. To "uncheck" an extension, when selected, press the right arrow.

Note: The extension list is very long, it does not stop at what appears on the screen. Remember to go until the end.

When you select which extensions you interested, please return to the previous screen with Quit and select Search to find files.
You will see this show:

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/8384/172015.png

If it's on a Linux partition that you search for files, select [EXT2/EXT3] , otherwise, take [ Other] .

PhotoRec then asks whether to search only files in free disk space or it is necessary to search the entire disk for lost files. Normally, you have little chance of finding lost files in a space occupied hard disk. To speed up the search, you can leave the research done in the free areas.

http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/1928/172017.png

PhotoRec will then ask you which directory it should place the files recovered. Select the directory you want and press Y to confirm.

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5162/101077.png

PhotoRec then search all files deleted from the type (s) selected.

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/1364/101083.png

At the end of the process, you find one (or more, sometimes there are three) files with images that have been found.


Some additional Information
With the arrow keys, select the [Option] (bottom of the screen) and click OK.
You get this:

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3673/200876.png

Paranoid : This option checks the files and saves only the whole files. The files are "broken" because other data have been rewritten over and will not be recovered.

Allow partial last cylinder : This option changes the way the disk geometry is determined. Do not touch it. The option Allow partial cylinder can change the way PhotoRec believes that the cylinders disk are arranged.

Keep corrupted files : backup files are corrupt or incomplete if you ever want to try to repair them with other methods such as Object-Zip-Fix .

xpert mode : allows to force the block size ("blocks" of Data download)

Low memory : do not enable this option if your system does not have much memory and may crash during file recovery.

PhotoRec runs:
- DOS/Win9x
- Windows NT 4/2000/XP/2003/Vista
- Linux
- FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
- Solaris
- Mac OS X

It can recover lost files from the following file system
- FAT
- NTFS
- ext2/ext3 (filesystem)
- +HFS

Important
As soon as it is missing a picture or a file or you have them destroyed by mistake, stop recording or any other picture file on the hard drive or memory card in question, otherwise you risk overwriting Lost. Especially when using Photorec, you should certainly not choose to store the recovered files on the partition where you extract.