SystemRescue
system-rescue.org
SystemRescue - System Rescue Homepage
It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of Linux system utilities such as GParted, fsarchiver, filesystem tools and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools).
Download
These command will recalculate the checksum on the downloaded file, and compare it with the expected checksums. These checksum programs are part of coreutils on Linux and should be pre-installed with most distributions.
System tools
Also p7zip is available using the 7z command in the terminal if you need to work with 7zip files. The rsync utility is very powerful for copying files either locally or remotely over an SSH connection.
Quick Start Guide
You can mount linux filesystems (ext4, xfs, btrfs, reiserfs) and FAT and NTFS partitions used by MS Windows using ntfs-3g with a command such as mkdir /mnt/windows ; ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /mnt/windows).
Installing SystemRescue on a USB memory stick
Fedora Media Writer is an alternative ... This doesn’t allow you to easily modify the YAML config files or add autorun scripts. The recommended tool for installing SystemRescue to a memory stick on Linux is SystemRescue USB writer....
DigitalOcean
digitalocean.com › community › tutorials › top-best-linux-data-recovery-tools
Top 20 Best Linux Data Recovery Tools to Recover Deleted/Corrupted Files | DigitalOcean
August 3, 2022 - Another really good command-line utility is Mondo Rescue which has a few unique features which are really helpful for people working on multiple different types of file systems. This is the one utility that has been used for decades to backup/restore/recover data from all types of storage devices tape drives too! ... Partition management - Resizing, partitioning, formatting, etc. Backup and restore between Linux ...
Videos
07:06
How to Recover Data in Linux After Formatting a Hard Disk or USB ...
19:07
Recovering Files from your PC (using Linux) - YouTube
38:57
QNAP Data Recovery in 2023 - YouTube
10:41
How to recover partitions and files in Linux! - YouTube
09:51
SpinRite 6.1 Review: Still the Best Data Recovery Tool? - YouTube
ArchWiki
wiki.archlinux.org › title › File_recovery
File recovery - ArchWiki
The ddrescue and dd_rescue utilities, unlike dd, will repeatedly try to recover from errors and will read the drive front to back, then back to front, attempting to salvage data. They keep log files so that recovery can be paused and resumed without losing progress.
TechRadar
techradar.com › pro › software & services
Best Linux repair and rescue distro of 2025 | TechRadar
May 17, 2022 - The latest version of SystemRescue now runs the 5.4.71 LTS (long-term support) Linux kernel, It also includes the dislocker utility to allow users to access data on media encrypted with BitLocker. The default boot option boots into a console which lists a command to configure the keyboard and another to start the graphical environment. The distro contains an extensive collection of tools for system and network analyzes, for hard disk partitioning, for file system handling, for data recovery, for reading out hardware information and for secure deletion.
R-Studio
r-studio.com › free-linux-recovery
Data Recovery and File Undelete freeware for Linux files
R-Linux is a free file recovery utility for the Ext2/Ext3/Ext4 FS file system used in the Linux OS and several Unixes. R-Linux uses the same InteligentScan technology as R-Studio, and flexible parameter settings to provide the fastest and most reliable file recovery for the Linux platform.
R-Studio
r-studio.com › data_recovery_linux
Linux Data Recovery Software. Hard Drive recovery utility
R-Studio for Linux recovers data from logical disks and partitions as well as disks and partitions that have been re-formatted, damaged or deleted. In addition to disks with common Linux file systems, R-Studio for Linux recovers files from Windows, FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD/Solaris, and Macintosh ...
EaseUS
easeus.com › data recovery › 2026 best free linux data recovery software for ext2/ext3
5 Best Free Linux Data Recovery Software in 2026 - EaseUS
3 days ago - These tools can save your data on your Linux hard drives. ... EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro is recommended. It can easily unformat files or perform partition recovery to rescue your data.
SystemRescue
system-rescue.org › System-tools
SystemRescue - System tools
Tools for the most common linux file systems are included and allow you to create new file systems, or administrate these (check consistency, repair, reisize, …).
FOSS Linux
fosslinux.com › home › downloads › the 6 best linux file recovery software
The 6 Best Linux File Recovery Software | FOSS Linux
April 14, 2022 - In this article, we will focus on the six best recovery tools available for Linux, and also show you how to install them on the most common Linux distributions. ... TestDisk is an opensource Data recovery tool mainly used to retrieve damaged partitions. It is also useful in recovering a non-booting disk if an error was caused by harmful software, virus, or even accidental file deletion. It is a powerful command-line utility that is easy to use and fast to understand.
UbuntuPIT
ubuntupit.com › home › reviews › 15 best data recovery tools for linux
15 Best Data Recovery Tools for Linux
October 31, 2025 - It is a Linux file recovery program that uses a bootable USB drive or CD-ROM to repair an unbootable or spoiled computer system caused by a system crash. This Linux partition recovery utility provides tools to retrieve data, create and edit partitions, and test Hard-disk. This disk recovery application has many more excellent features, as listed below: ... Its FSArchiver system tool lets you rescue the materials of a file system to a compacted archive file.
Wondershare Recoverit
recoverit.wondershare.com › wondershare recoverit › hard drive recovery › the 10 best linux data recovery software
Top 10 Linux Data Recovery Tools | Ultimate Guide
It only supports EXT3/4 file system. Mondo is a free and dependable command-line data recovery utility available for the most popular Linux distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, openSuSE, SLES, Mandriva, Mageia, and Gentoo). It has numerous unique features and has been widely used by large and small businesses to recover/back up/restore data for a long time.
Linux and Ubuntu
linuxandubuntu.com › home › reviews › 5 best linux file recovery software
5 Best Linux File Recovery Software - LinuxAndUbuntu
May 31, 2024 - This small distro is not a permanent Linux distro but can be run with a bootable CD or from the USB stick to recover damaged partitions, create a partition, data recovery from lost partitions and many more. GParted enables you to easily manage your disk partitions: ... Avira Rescue System is a set of free tools that include a utility used to write a bootable CD which can be downloaded as an ISO file...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/linux4noobs › recovery tools for linux?
r/linux4noobs on Reddit: Recovery Tools for Linux?
March 9, 2022 -
So.... yesterday I did something really dumb. I accidentally deleted a partition and I want to see if anyone has recommendations for Linux tools.
It was done in Windows, the drive was an external drive formatted as ExFat. I realized immediately that I had selected the wrong drive, so very little data (if any) was overwritten, it just got formatted to NTFS and I quickly killed the program. It's not a total loss, because all the important stuff is backed up elsewhere, but it's still super annoying because I was in the process of organizing a decade's worth of photos into folders and I'd like to just recover the partition if possible. Spent DAYS so far.
Already tried MiniTool Partition Wizard, no luck there. It finds a million files, but not the partition. I'm currently trying testdisk on Linux, but wanted to ask if anyone has other suggestions, or has any tips.
Thanks for any help!!
Currently on Kubuntu 22.04, if that makes a difference.
Top answer 1 of 7
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It's been a while since I've been to r/datarecovery . But if you're patient enough to read the top posts of that sub and not use the affected drive in that time, you will surely learn about the best tools for the job. Iirc, you want to start by making a full-drive image ("copy") of the drive so that any attempt at restoring the data doesn't pose the risk to lose even more. Edit: this flowchart is linked on that sub - check it out
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r-linux. it's an r application that can recover data. It won't recover the partition as is but it will allow you to retrieve the data.
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The link someone provided in the comments is likely your best chance.
Linux debugfs Hack: Undelete Files
That write-up though looking a little intimidating is actually fairly straight forward to follow. In general the steps are as follows:
Use debugfs to view a filesystems log
$ debugfs -w /dev/mapper/wks01-rootAt the debugfs prompt
debugfs: lsdelSample output
Inode Owner Mode Size Blocks Time deleted 23601299 0 120777 3 1/ 1 Tue Mar 13 16:17:30 2012 7536655 0 120777 3 1/ 1 Tue May 1 06:21:22 2012 2 deleted inodes found.Run the command in debugfs
debugfs: logdump -i <7536655>Determine files inode
... ... .... output truncated Fast_link_dest: bin Blocks: (0+1): 7235938 FS block 7536642 logged at sequence 38402086, journal block 26711 (inode block for inode 7536655): Inode: 7536655 Type: symlink Mode: 0777 Flags: 0x0 Generation: 3532221116 User: 0 Group: 0 Size: 3 File ACL: 0 Directory ACL: 0 Links: 0 Blockcount: 0 Fragment: Address: 0 Number: 0 Size: 0 ctime: 0x4f9fc732 -- Tue May 1 06:21:22 2012 atime: 0x4f9fc730 -- Tue May 1 06:21:20 2012 mtime: 0x4f9fc72f -- Tue May 1 06:21:19 2012 dtime: 0x4f9fc732 -- Tue May 1 06:21:22 2012 Fast_link_dest: bin Blocks: (0+1): 7235938 No magic number at block 28053: end of journal.With the above inode info run the following commands
# dd if=/dev/mapper/wks01-root of=recovered.file.001 bs=4096 count=1 skip=7235938 # file recovered.file.001 file: ASCII text, with very long lines
Files been recovered to recovered.file.001.
Other options
If the above isn't for you I've used tools such as photorec to recover files in the past, but it's geared for image files only. I've written about this method extensively on my blog in this article titled:
How to Recover Corrupt jpeg and mov Files from a Digital Camera's SDD Card on Fedora/CentOS/RHEL.
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If you know a very specific pattern in your deleted files, use grep to search in the hard-drive (maybe browse your clipboard to search a pasted line, or vim yank):
grep -a -C 300 -F 'known fixed string in deleted file' /dev/sda > ~/recover
Better change ~/recover for a path to another drive if your HOME is on the same drive you search.
then edit ~/recover to keep only what was your file before by editing. With by example vim editor, that will be a simple task.
Hey, if with Unix philosophy all is files, it's time to take advantage of this, no ?
Explanations
-ais meant to grep even binary data-C<NUM>specifies lines of output context from before and after each match of the string; you can use-B<NUM>to include lines before each match or-A<NUM>to include lines after each match instead-Ffixed string
Another approach, using potential remaining File Descriptor
With a bit of chances, sometimes I can recover deleted files with this :
#!/bin/bash
export LANG=C
if [[ ! $1 || $1 == -h || $1 == --help ]]; then
echo -e "Usage:\n\n\t$0 '[path/]<file name>'"
exit 1
fi
files=(
$(file 2>/dev/null /proc/*/fd/* |
grep "(deleted)'$" |
sed -r 's@(:.*broken\s+symbolic\s+link\s+to\s+.|\(deleted\).$)@ @g' |
grep "$1" |
cut -d' ' -f1
)
)
if [[ ${files[@]} ]]; then
for f in ${files[@]}; do
echo "fd $f match... Try to copy this fd to another place quickly!"
done
else
echo >&2 "No matching fd found..."
exit 2
fi
SourceForge
sourceforge.net › projects › systemrescuecd
SystemRescue download | SourceForge.net
SystemRescue is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating ...
LinuxLinks
linuxlinks.com › home › 14 best free and open source linux data recovery tools
14 Best Free and Open Source Linux Data Recovery Tools - LinuxLinks
October 8, 2023 - The software featured in this article are high quality standalone Linux tools which help you to recover data in a range of circumstances.
OperaVPS
operavps.com › docs › 10 top linux data recovery tools for effective file recovery
10 Best Linux Data Recovery Tools for File Recovery
October 9, 2025 - Here are the Best Linux Data Recover Tools in 2025: TestDisk: Partition & File Recovery. PhotoRec: File Recovery. ... Extundelete: File Recovery from Ext3/Ext4. Mondo Rescue: Full System Backup & Recovery.
Linux Hint
linuxhint.com › top_data_recovery_tools_linux
Top data recovery tools for linux – Linux Hint
Another Linux distribution to run from CD or USB. It contains recovery tools including Gparted, Ddrescue and TestDisk named above among others, this software has the advantage of being operable by blind users. You can get System Rescue CD at: http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/
Centron
centron.de › startseite › top 20 best linux data recovery tools – comprehensive guide
Linux Data Recovery: Top 20 Tools for File Restoration
February 18, 2025 - ... Another really good command-line utility is Mondo Rescue which has a few unique features which are really helpful for people working on multiple different types of file systems.
Linux Journal
linuxjournal.com › content › linux-data-recovery-how-salvage-lost-or-corrupted-files
Linux Data Recovery: How to Salvage Lost or Corrupted Files | Linux Journal
Choose disk > partition > file types. Specify recovery folder. Best for recovering images, documents, and videos from formatted or corrupted disks. Extundelete · A command-line utility for recovering deleted files from ext3 or ext4 partitions.