Testdisk file recovery program not working

ssfc72 · October 20, 2019, 04:18:42 AM

I seem to be unable to get the above program to recover deleted files. Testdisk is a command line program and I got it through using Synaptic.
As a test, I deleted a couple of files on 2 different notebook computers and in each case I could not get Testdisk to find the deleted files.
I have followed a tutorial that I found on the internet but when I start up the Testdisk program and navigate to the directory where the deleted files where, Testdisk does not show any deleted files (the files should be highlighted in red).
On the one notebook computer I am running as a user with Admin privledges. Testdisk also asks for the sudo password when I select the Create a log file, which I provide and it continues on.
I have also used Sudo in starting up the Testdisk program and I still can't get Testdisk to find the test files that I deleted.

Anyone have an idea what I am doing wrong?

fox · October 20, 2019, 08:21:05 AM

I just looked up Testdisk in wiki and it states there in the File Recovery section what types of file formats it can recover. Those listed are only FAT, NTFS, exFAT and ext2; not ext4. Might that be the problem?

ssfc72 · October 20, 2019, 09:48:26 AM

Testdisk shows the existing files in the directory, so I don't think there is any problem with ext4.

Jason · October 20, 2019, 01:55:06 PM

Ext3 and Ext4 are basically just Ext2 with journalling. You can use an ext2 filesystem driver to read ext3/4.
The journalling is the add-on that means when your computer crashes or you don't shut it down properly you can recover quickly without having to do the dreaded fsck which looks remarkably like the word you used to say when it happened to you. Recent file writes are journaled so that if the worst happens, it can use the journal to recover the file which would have otherwise been corrupted.

Jason · October 27, 2019, 12:22:34 AM

Did you ever figure this one, Bill? I'm curious.

ssfc72 · October 27, 2019, 01:18:28 AM

No, I was not able to get TestDisk to work for me, at recovering a deleted file. I did tests on 2 different notebook computers, on deleting a file, but was not able to get TestDisk to find the file.
At the next PLUG Mug I go to maybe we can look into this problem?

Jason · October 27, 2019, 03:42:21 AM

That sounds like a good idea.