Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:25:33 +0200 From: Joachim Dagerot <joachim@dagerot.nu> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Undelete featured filesystemforfreebsd? WAS: Undelete on untouched partition Message-ID: <200409202025.i8KKPXp01353@thunder.trej.net> In-Reply-To: <20040920152214.577850be.wmoran@potentialtech.com>
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| In any event, I can tell you the first thing to do is dd the partition | into a file so that you can make backups before you start attempting | to undelete. i.e. dd if=/dev/ad??? of=/some/part/diskimage, then | cp diskimage workingimage. | | Then you can 3 things: | 1) Start using the computer again if you like | 2) Work on workingimage in an attempt to restore the lost file | 3) Feel confident that if you screw up something on workingimage, | you can just copy diskimage again and give it another go. I'm just running TCT after a suggestion from another writer on this eminent list. For the record this url may help other people that searches in the archives for "recover deleted file" or "undelete file": http://www.fish.com/tct/help-recovering-file I don't have any result yet though. | > Why not a filesystem that takes care of that for me? | | Why not a filesystem that keeps itself defragmented, instead of | requiring you to do it every so often? I am in the strong believe that UFS2 is self-defragmenting, atleast I don't have any problems with fragmentation on my freeBSD iron, as opposite to our windows machines then. Point taken though, but it would be nice to have the ultimate filesystem with both some built in user tolerance AND security AND de-fragmentation logic AND smart allocation AND etc etc. | > Why do I always | > need to do everything by myself, why can't a computer year 2004 be | > more fault tolerant, my car is, and so is my CD and my stove. | | How much did you pay for your computer? I think this goes back to | a common misconception that the general public has (which I blame on | MS and Apple) There is no computer available today that is smarter | than a human, even the stupidest human is smarter than the smartest | computer. If you expect the computer to know better than you what | data is good and what isn't, you're about to be repeatedly | disappointed. Yes, you are right, and especially if I choose to run from command line there is no security net between my stupidity and the computers logic. I guess all user tolerant tools must be but between me and the filesystem, atleast that's what's done on Windows. (There's no trashcan in dos ie). | Besides, computers are not remotely like your CD, stove or car. For | example, the fault tolerant systems in your car never have to wonder | if you're doing something you shouldn't or not. | | Your car never has to determine if you really want to hit the brakes | or not. If cars were fault-tolerant on the level that you are expecting | your computer to be, we'd have few or no accidents. I'm really in a | state of mystery as to what kind of car you have that has fault | tolerance such that it protects you from human error! I'd like one | that doesn't let me pull out in front of other people even if I can't | seem them (VERY helpful in Western PA!) Well, today when I panic brake my car helps me not to lock the wheels, to increase the retardation efficence. There are cars that change the power balance between the left and right rear wheels during heavy movements from side to side, to help the driver from forcing the car off the road. So, yes, the cars today certainly helps a bad driver to some extent. (Sorry for this long text, I'm not too good on mechanichal terms in english:) | > | It's rather interesting to note that the Windows world focuses on | > | recovering from mistakes _after_ they happen, whereas the Unix | > | world focuses on working in such a way that mistake recovery will be | > | trivial. | > | | > | Windows -> Oops, I screwed up, let me publish the crazy things I | > | had to do to recover from my mistake. | > | Unix -> I'm going to do this important stuff. Before I start, I'm | > | going to assume that the fact that I'm human means there's a good | > | chance that I'll make mistakes and corrupt or lose things, | > | so I'll take steps from the get-go to make it easy to backtrack | > | when that happens. | > | > I think your shown attitude is just what makes alternate OS to | > Microsoft so hard to reach for common users. I believe in having | > technology that aids me in my every day work so I can focus on less | > trivial things than data recovery. | | Like CVS and backups? Yes, that would be neat if it was something I could control/setup in the sysinstall->label, like (CVS this volume). CVS would ofcourse be crap for most of the time because of the CVS-folders it trashes my nice directory structure with, but an automatic dump-restore would be nice. | > In your world freeBSD and other not-so-very-user-focused-systems are | > for übermenchen when windows are for normal human beeings that do just | > what human beings do: errors. Well, this thread for sure is not a | > windows<->unix discussion and I regret allready that I took up windows | > as an example from the beginning. | | The point is that you (as a user) have to make certain decisions, whether | or not you're using Windows or FreeBSD or CP/M, for crying out loud. | | If you deleted a file, then emptied your recycle bin and defragged your | HDD, and only _then_ realized that you shouldn't have deleted the file, | would you still blame Windows? Yet you didn't use any of the tools | available on FreeBSD to protect yourself from data loss. Yes, I'm starting to get you point ;-). And yes, the User-Stupidyty-Tolerance-SubSystem can only extend to some point, and where that point is will always, I guess, be one step after what the user manages to do. | It doesn't seem to be a problem with Windows/FreeBSD or anything else, | it just seems to be that you're not familiar with the tools available | in FreeBSD. I can only talk for myself, with my experience and to some extent all people I've met so far, and no matter how educated you are on a system, a tool or a task you can, and will, always make a mistake. Remember Muphys law nr 1. Even a carpenter with 30 years of knowledge sometimes smashes his thumb with the hammer. Then it's good that there are systems, both internal such as coagulation and external such as patches that helps him recover. The problem is anyway that I like being close to the machine (no GUI etc) but are perhaps too fast on the keyboard :-D PS: Is it me or you that delivers badly formatted texts, I have a full-time trying to straight all comments up. But I'm posting on a web interface so I can't guarantee anything. This text is wrapped on col .72
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