[sleuthkit-users] Undeleting files on ext3

[Andrass Z. D. <az...@li...>]

Dear sleuthkit-users,

I have a disk image from which I need to recover deleted files. The 
system is ext3fs. I have The Sleuth Kit and Autopsy up and running.

(I would like to excuse my bad knowledge of the terminology.)

I am aware that inode pointers are nulled at deletion, therefore I have 
no info on how the blocks are (were) joined.

I have made a timeline around when the files were deleted. The entries 
are like in the following excerpt (might look bad due to word wrapping):

                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 115      100      12451900 <sdb1.img-dead-12451900>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 509      100      2998404  <sdb1.img-dead-2998404>
                                0 .a. d/drwxrwxrwx 115      100      5554256  /home/samba/pub/Projects/0412/doc/Memo (deleted)
                                0 .a. d/drwxrwxrwx 115      100      8257636  /home/samba/pub/Projects/0331/NONLIN (deleted)
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 524      100      13877367 <sdb1.img-dead-13877367>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 115      100      8257636  <sdb1.img-dead-8257636>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 504      100      12812364 <sdb1.img-dead-12812364>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      12255345 <sdb1.img-dead-12255345>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 504      100      11223152 <sdb1.img-dead-11223152>
Fri Oct 01 2004 11:42:36        0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      7553144  <sdb1.img-dead-7553144>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 507      100      4423788  <sdb1.img-dead-4423788>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 510      100      12812405 <sdb1.img-dead-12812405>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      11534455 <sdb1.img-dead-11534455>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 504      100      12812410 <sdb1.img-dead-12812410>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      6733944  <sdb1.img-dead-6733944>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      6389880  <sdb1.img-dead-6389880>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      3981345  <sdb1.img-dead-3981345>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      11305068 <sdb1.img-dead-11305068>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 507      100      7913597  <sdb1.img-dead-7913597>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      9732192  <sdb1.img-dead-9732192>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      12206157 <sdb1.img-dead-12206157>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 504      100      2867317  <sdb1.img-dead-2867317>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      3162206  <sdb1.img-dead-3162206>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 504      100      2621515  <sdb1.img-dead-2621515>
                                0 .a. d/drwxrwxrwx 511      100      3899448  /home/samba/pub/Projects/0412/etc/0412 Clamp (deleted)
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      12468314 <sdb1.img-dead-12468314>
                                0 .a. d/drwxrwxrwx 507      100      4423788  /home/samba/pub/Projects/0416/dwg/Refs (deleted)
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      8683640  <sdb1.img-dead-8683640>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 500      500      5046321  <sdb1.img-dead-5046321>
                                0 .a. drwxrwxrwx 505      100      6094953  <sdb1.img-dead-6094953>

My question is then: Is there any guarantee for that the inodes are deleted sequentially and in the same order as in the log? 

Or: Is it possible that the inodes from line 5 to 24 all belong to the same dir (...0331/NONLIN or ...etc/0412 Clamp)?

(The log is from rsync stdout which caused the deletion (due to my misunderstanding of some flags))

At least I know that the incident happened somewhere between 11:42 and 11:46, but the number of files is 10000+. The backup procedures have been off for some time, but we have recovered around 9000 of the files. I need to get the last 1000 as well, and they were only stored on that disk.

Should I from the information in the timeline use `dls` to extract the blocks mentioned between 11:42 and 11:46 and then try to analyse the blocks with `foremost` (or similar)? Or should I do a 

dls -f ext3fs /mnt/image.dd start-stop

where start is, say, lowest block number (7th column) within window and stop is highest block number within window?

Please give me som advice, as this is my first (and last)?

regards
andrass

-- 
Andrass Ziska Davidsen
LICengineering A/S
Ehlersvej 24
DK-2900 Hellerup
DENMARK

tel. (+45) 39 62 16 42
fax. (+45) 39 62 54 80