Restoring meta data, and better indexing, recovered files?

[Mr Davo]

Hi All,

I have just recovered files from a QNAP NAS to a WD MyBook 4Tb HDD. I did this by following the instructions at this link - http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=84&t=29038.

Once I recovered the files using PhotoRec I plugged the MyBook into an Ubuntu box, and am pleased to say that I have recovered all of my files. However I am now wondering if there is any way of retrieving original meta data from the recovered folders / files?

At the moment my folder structure looks like this -



Furthermore an example of one of my folders contents is as follows -



As can be seen above several common file extensions have been retrieved (though I suspect that at least some .txt files are in fact either .doc, or .docx files) however original file names have been lost. Furthermore the 'last modified' date is the date that the files were recovered, rather than the date that the files were created, or modified last (in a user activity sense).

Can anybody suggest any way of better indexing, or retrieving more meta data, from these files?

Kind Regards,

Davo

[digitalferret]

Hi Davo, what filesystem are you recovering on the NAS, Ext3 ?

[lcoughey]

After reading your post on the other forum, are you sure that your files open? Can you open larger images, documents and the likes? I have a feeling that your recovery isn't as good as you believe it to be...but, do hope I'm wrong.

[data-medics]

First of all, given that it's a NAS the filesystem is likely either ext3/4 or ZFS, and with the right software such as UFSExplorer you can actually recover the folder/file structure in tact.

However if you have to do a RAW recovery (like what photorec does) then you can sort like this:

• Search by file type and cut/paste it all into folders organized by type of file (E.G. search *.jpg to get all pictures and put in a "Pictures" folder)
• Use a program called Attribute Magic Pro to read the metadata from inside each file type folder and you can use that to rename files based on things like Author, Last Edited, etc. so you have an idea what's what.