How to undelete files and folders that have been deleted using shift+delete

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 16.04. I mistakenly shift+deleted files and folders in my Documents folder. I'm trying to use extundelete utility but which is not helping me.

I don't know which sda* to be used. Please help me out with this.

$ sudo extundelete --restore-all --after $(date -d "-2 hours" +%s) /dev/sda

which shows the following output:

Only show and process deleted entries if they are deleted on or after 1521022350 and before 9223372036854775807.

extundelete: Bad magic number in super-block when trying to open filesystem /dev/sda

When I do

$ sudo fdisk -l

it shows the following:

Please help me out how to recover data using extundelete

Solution 1

sda is the whole drive, you should use sda5 as this appears to be your OS-partition. So if you modify your command to

sudo extundelete --restore-all --after $(date -d "-2 hours" +%s) /dev/sda5

it should work as you expect.

Solution 2

It looks like you're trying to use extundelete on a mounted partition. Rather, you should use a Ubuntu Live DVD or USB to boot, install extundelete in the live system, and then use it on the unmounted /dev/sda5 partition.

You'll also need some other media (another USB stick will do) to restore those deleted files to.

This guide should walk you through it: The Magic of Extundelete

Comments

[muru]

Please don't post screenshots of text. Copying the text here and using code formatting is best.

[php12345]

I tried that one too, it shows the same error Bad magic number in super-block when trying to open filesystem /dev/sda5

[Anon]

Mine is unmounted, and its giving me this error.

[alchemy]

@php12345, this error happens with the basic tool fsck. Here is an answer for that. It didn't work for me. unix.stackexchange.com/questions/456772/…