Recovering Your Deleted Files on Linux

If you lost your files by mistakingly deleting them, you can recover the files using TestDisk. TestDisk is an open-source and free app that supports FAT, exFAT, NTFS, ext2, ext3, and ext4 partitions.

To install TestDisk, you must copy this script in a writing app (like gedit) and save with the *.sh suffix.

#!/bin/bash

#############################

###                 This script will help you to recover the accidentally

###                     deleted data from crashed linux file systems

###                          Script created by (Srijan Kishore)

#############################



# User Check



if [ "$USER" = 'root' ]

    then

        gdialog --title "User Check" --msgbox "User is root, you can execute the script successfully." 200 150        

        echo "User is root, you can execute the script successfully"

    else

        gdialog --title "User Check" --msgbox "User is not Root. Please run the script as root user." 200 150

        echo "User is not Root. Please run the script as root user."

        exit 1

fi



# Check your operating system



cat /etc/debian_version >> /dev/null 

if [ "$?" = 0 ]

    then

        echo "You are using ubuntu/debian"

        gdialog --title "Your Operating System" --msgbox "You are using ubuntu/debian"

    else

        gdialog --title "Your Operating System" --msgbox "You are not using debian/ubuntu.You can download the TestDisk from this link http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download"



    echo "You are not using debian/ubuntu. You can download the TestDisk from this link http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download"

        

fi





# Installing Testdisk

testdisk /version >> /dev/null

if [ "$?" = 0 ]

then

    echo "Testdisk already installed"

else

    echo "Installing Testdisk"

    apt-get update 

    apt-get upgrade    

        apt-get --force-yes -y install testdisk   

                

                    gdialog --title "Success" --msgbox "Testdisk installed successfully" 100 50

                  

 fi

    

# Set backup directory

mkdir -p /root/result/lostfiles





#Run the recovery program



photorec /d /root/result/lostfiles



# Filters files

 

user=`ps aux | grep gnome-session | grep -v grep | head -1 | cut -d " " -f1`

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output"



mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Debians"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/rpms"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/conf_files"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/exe"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/binaries"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Docs"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Pdfs"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Mbox"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Images"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Sound"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/ISO"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Excel"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Presentation"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives"

mkdir "/home/$user/recovered_output/Others"



#Sorting the Recovered data





find /root/result/ -name "*.doc"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Docs/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.docx"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Docs/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.odt"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Docs/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.pdf"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Pdfs/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.mbox"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Mbox/"  \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.png"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Images/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.jpg"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Images/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.jpeg"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Images/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.gif"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Images/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.avi"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.mpeg"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.mp4"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.mkv"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.webm"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.wmv"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.flv"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Videos/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.mp3"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Sound/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.wav"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Sound/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.deb"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Debians/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.bin"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/binaries/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.exe"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/exe/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.rpm"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/rpms/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.conf"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/conf_files" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.iso"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/ISO/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.xls"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Excel/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.xlsx"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Excel/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.csv"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Excel/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.ods"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Excel/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.ppt"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Presentation/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.pptx"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Presentation/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.odp"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Presentation/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.html"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.htm"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.jsp"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.xml"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.css"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.js"     -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Web_Files/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.zip"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.tar"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.rar"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.gzip"   -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.tar.gz" -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.7z"     -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.bz"     -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives/" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.bz2"    -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Archives" \;

find /root/result/ -name "*.*"      -type f  -exec mv {} "/home/$user/recovered_output/Others/" \;

chown -R $user "/home/$user/recovered_output"

zenity --display :0 --info --width=350 --height=100 --title "Recovery Successful" --text " Data has been recovered successfully in recovered_output folder in your home directory."

nautilus /home/$user/recovered_output &

exit 0

To catch Root access, execute sudo -i

To run the script, execute sh script.sh

Afterwards, it will show all of your storage devices, so select one.

Below is a series of screenshots that shows how to use TestDisk.

Further Reading

• Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) - https://dcjtech.info/topic/filesystem-hierarchy-standard-fhs/
• Undeleting Files - https://dcjtech.info/topic/undeleting-files/
• Filesystem Article Index - https://dcjtech.info/topic/filesystems/