[lug] lost and found

[D. Stimits]

jdavis wrote:

> hello,
>  I crashed Gnome and my box. I rebooted, during the file check a
> orphaned inode was appended to lost and found. So now in lost and found
> I have this file...
>
> ns2:~# ls /lost+found/
> #144557
>
> can i or should i do anything with this file other than delete it?

It all depends. Use an editor to view the file. If it is plain text, you 
might be able to recognize what it came from, and attempt manual repair. 
If not plain text, you could run the strings command on it to read 
strings, and perhaps at least know what it came from (though you 
couldn't repair a binary file with that unless the entire binary file 
was empty...then you could just copy it over). Most of the time you'll 
just end up removing it, though it wouldn't hurt to let it stick around 
for a while until you determine no odd behavior is going on (and if 
there is odd behavior, it might still have no value in determining a fix).

D. Stimits, stimits AT attbi DOT com