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4.11.4 Recovering lost files

  If you accidentally deleted important files on your system, there's no way to ``undelete'' them. However, you can copy the relevant files from the floppy to your hard drive. For example, if you deleted /bin/login on your system (which allows you to login), simply boot the boot/root floppy, mount the root filesystem on /mnt, and use the command

# cp -a /bin/login /mnt/bin/login

The -a option tells cp to preserve the permissions on the file(s) being copied.

Of course, if the files you deleted weren't essential system files which have counterparts on the boot/root floppy, you're out of luck. If you made backups, you can always restore from them.



next up previous contents index
Next: 4.11.5 Fixing trashed libraries Up: 4.11 What To Do Previous: 4.11.3 Fixing trashed filesystems



Matt Welsh
mdw@sunsite.unc.edu