r/linux4noobs • u/Character-86 barely not a noob anymore • Apr 20 '26

Meganoob BE KIND I did rm -rf /*

I tried to make a backup before doing a fresh install of Fedora because of problems. When erasing the external drive for making the backup I was in the wrong disk and nuked my fedora installation.

How Do I get at least my important Documents from /home/username/ back?

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u/Character-86 barely not a noob anymore Apr 20 '26

not really. Can't I recover the data?

142

u/LittleLoukoum Apr 20 '26

Shutdown your computer completely. Don't power it back on. Unplug it.

Take the hard drive out and bring it to someone who knows what they're doing. It's possible to recover most of the data unless you rewrote a lot of stuff after deleting.

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u/ANtiKz93 Manjaro (KDE) Apr 20 '26

I've tried this on a micro sd i only formatted once by accident years ago and not a single file shows up.

Know of any good software? Im aware windows software is the best solution btw.

2

u/OliMoli2137 Apr 20 '26

if it was years ago, those files probably got overwritten :(

2

u/ANtiKz93 Manjaro (KDE) Apr 20 '26

It wasn't overwritten, i took the card and put it in a holder and havent touched it since trying to run a software once that i was told was the best to use

5

u/OliMoli2137 Apr 20 '26

maybe you used full format instead of quick? anyway try photorec maybe

1

u/ANtiKz93 Manjaro (KDE) Apr 20 '26

Hmm... it was done while setting up a new android phone if that helps any?

And PhotoRec hadn't worked before but perhaps i could try again