Well... you could use fsdb to restore the files, if you really, really knew what you were doing - like Windoze, UNIX essentially only marks the inode as deleted. The data blocks themselves are not modified (except in trusted systems). You need to rebuild part of the inode, and then rebuild it's directory entry.
Of course, you cannot write anything to the filesystem between when you deleted the files and when you attempt restoration - otherwise, it's unlikely that you would be successful as some of the datablocks you want back would probably be re-used.
I've done this, but it was way ugly, and no fun at all. I also had an developer from Veritas on the phone. It's easier to re-install the machine from scratch for most folks. (in my case, it was a database file that was lost - a *very* big database file. The customer said, "Backups? We don't do backups - that's why we have RAID!") Unfortunately, RAID doesn't protect you from your operators. ;-}
Consider this a lesson in using that 'root' account. It's a good policy to always log in as yourself, and only 'su' when absolutely necessary, and exit the su as soon as you've typed your 1 or 2 commands that needed root privs.
Don't think you're stupid, either - it happens occasionally to even the best administrators. That's why there's backups! Did you know that approx. 30% of all system downtime is a direct result of the Systems Administrator??? Human Error. It's what makes us all human.
If you want to feel better, somewhere on this forum is a thread asking people to fess up their greatest blunders - oh, boy, there are some *really* good ones there! ;-}
Good luck, and I hope your re-load goes smoothly.
-Vince
No matter where you go, there you are.
