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I have this 150Gb compressed file I accidentally deleted on an ext4 file system (running Ubuntu 16.04). Unfortunately, I only realized my mistake after a couple of days and about as many reboots. I burnt a LiveCD and tried this:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo extundelete /dev/sda3 --restore-file really_big_compressed_file.xz
NOTICE: Extended attributes are not restored.
Loading filesystem metadata ... 7189 groups loaded.
Loading journal descriptors ... 30218 descriptors loaded.
Unable to restore inode 19017642 (really_big_compressed_file.xz): No undeleted copies found in the journal.
Unable to restore file really_big_compressed_file.xz
extundelete: Operation not permitted while restoring file.
extundelete: Operation not permitted when trying to examine filesystem

What're my options at this point?

Opux
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  • You could try using TestDisk: https://vitux.com/how-to-recover-deleted-files-in-ubuntu-through-testdisk/ – graham Sep 10 '19 at 13:23
  • Time to take your hard drive to a professional data recovery service. Every time you use your drive, you risk overwriting parts of your deleted file and making them unrecoverable. – user535733 Sep 10 '19 at 13:34
  • @user535733 I was of the mind that the tools I was using were read-only until a recovery operation is certain. I've only started that computer using a LiveCD since I realized what I'd done. – Opux Sep 10 '19 at 14:24
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    @graham it certainly has a much better interface. Unfortunately, it decided my file is 0 length and that's what it copied – Opux Sep 11 '19 at 03:38

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