Today had some important markdown file that accidentally deleted on my SSD and had to go over the recovery of it.
All I did was this:
run sudo systemctl status fstrim.timer to check how often TRIM runs on my system (apparently it runs weekly and the next scheduled run was in 3 days)
run sudo pacman -S testdisk
run sudo photorec
choose the correct partition where the files were deleted
choose filesystem type (ext4)
choose a destination folder where to save recovered files
start recovery
10-15 minutes and it’s done.
open nvim in parent folder and grep for content in the file that I remember adding today
That’s it - the whole process was so fast. No googling through 10 different sites with their shitty flashy UIs promising “free recovery,” wondering whether this is even trustworthy to install on your machine, dealing with installers that’ll sneak in annoying software if you click too fast, only to have them ask for payment later. No navigating complex GUIs either.
I was so thankful for this I actually donated to the maintainers of the software. Software done right.
It takes some time to understand the manpage format but it’s worth the time because they’re always available.
When I first started, I used the website explainshell to help my get an idea of how the most common commands worked.
This has the benefit of referencing the man pages directly so you can better learn how to interpret them.