resurrecting files

[Florian Falkenstein]

Does anybody know anything about resurrecting files, or -even better - avoiding it. As far as I know removing a file only the directory entry is removed and the blocks are added to the free list, but physically the data remains. I heard that there exist tools to restore files, is it true ? And are there tools to delete files irrevocably ?


Thanks in advance
Florian Falkenstein

[Stefan Farrelly]

There is an unrm utility which can possibly recover files only deleted thru rm - and only if you use it quickly and the space the deleted file occupied hasnt been reused by a new file yet (small chance).

I dont think there is any way to blank a file to ensure its contents are gone, unless you blank the entire disk it is on using dd if=/dev/zero.