Data Recovery From Accidentally Deleted Files or Crashed Drives in Ubuntu

Version 1.0
Author: Srijan Kishore 

This tutorial will help you to recover data from accidentally deleted data from Linux-file systems. This is a very drastic mistake by any user/admin which costs for huge penalties. This script will be a boon for newbies/expert for data management. I will be using TestDisk for data-recovery. Here I have simplified the task with the help of a script.

1. Background

• Fix partition table
• Undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions

Beside these functions TesdDisk have several functionality for the data maintenance/management

2. Requirement

3. Script

#!/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
      

4. Script Execution

Simply copy the above script & paste in file viz. script.sh & give the execute  permissions to the script.

chmod +x script.sh

Note: Please run the script with root by using the command

sudo -i                                        #### Put your system login password##########

Run the script & it will guide you further.

sh script.sh

5. Finalization

Firstly script will confirm that whether the user running the script is root, then it will check for the TestDisk tool installation. It will redirect you to the drive selection page for the data recovery.

Select the drive which you want to recover.

Select its filesystem.

Exit the TestDisk tool as follows.