Photorec: Recover Your Deleted Files

by daiashi

Have you ever been in a hurry, and did not back up your files properly? Then you hit that empty recycle bin button one too many times? I did just that! I deleted all the pics I used for work in one fell swoop! I just sat there, thinking, "Oh yea, I have a server full of free software that the hard working folks at PCLinuxOS have packaged to get me out of such a situation." So I fired up Synaptic, hit the reload button and searched for "file recovery". Lo and behold, my eyes focused on photorec. If this happens to you, give it a try. I did, and got all my pics back and then some.

Now for the inner workings. After you download it, you will want to start it in a terminal. Issue the su command and your password to give you root status, then type photorec. Choose the drive you want to search, hit enter and then choose the partition holding the files. Once you get to the partition screen you will see at the bottom.

>[Search] [Options ] [File Opt] [ Quit ].

If you go the search route, be forewarned. You can fill up a hard drive in no time. In my case, I used my camera phone that was plugged in as my search directory. In short order they were all there. So if you are in that situation give this little jewel a try. It saved me, so maybe it can save you too.

Now a little about the person responsible for Photorec.

Cgsecurity is a site created by Christophe Grenier. He started the project in 1998 and is still the main developer. He is also responsible for the packaging of TestDisk and PhotoRec for DOS, Windows, Linux, MacOS X and Fedora's distribution. http://www.cgsecurity.org/

A few screenshots