security updates & external hard disk woes...

[przxqgl]

But it remains strange Dolphin needed so much coaching to reveal the hoard...

before my injury i worked as a software tester, and what i saw in this case was surprisingly typical for otherwise "normally" functioning computers... i'm fairly sure that i couldn't reproduce the behaviour in a million years. the problem was clearly a result of what i have come to refer to as "computer demons".

Or make a small donation to this forum.

that's an idea... i have been a member for a while, and, while i never had anything like the kinds of difficulties i had in the past few days, i think that a donation to kubuntuforums dot net would be a great way to pay them (and you) back for all your help...

You've done quite well with your computer, not dumping it right away but instead willing to try various options for recovery.
Hang around this forum and you will end up even more competent in the use of Linux and Kubuntu.

i do a lot of other things: i am a musician and i play with several different bands, and work at a variety of different occupations, so i may not turn into a "regular" here, but, as i said, i have been a member for a while, and every time i need to know something about kubuntu, this is the first place i come...

thanks, once again! 8)

[Teunis]

Great!

Thanks for the information about the use of Dolphin, this was not a lost icons cache.
But it remains strange Dolphin needed so much coaching to reveal the hoard...

And thanks for the offer, I saw your website and as a frequent world traveller I have some idea what you offer, nice stuff even for non-hippies
But I really like this site and just friendship is sufficient reward!
I'm sure you can think of a worthy good cause in your neighbourhood.
Or make a small donation to this forum.

You've done quite well with your computer, not dumping it right away but instead willing to try various options for recovery.
Hang around this forum and you will end up even more competent in the use of Linux and Kubuntu.

[przxqgl]

Great to hear!!
It took a while but we were careful and worked in small steps so as not to upset things.

i really appreciate your help. i was fairly sure that the data existed, somewhere, i just didn't have the first clue where...

then when the "WHAM!" happened and the /Desktop directory went from empty to full of my data, it was a huge releif. i was, hesitantly, ready to give up and start over, even knowing that all the data was intact, but that i just couldn't get to it. it would have been disasterous, but i was prepared for it. now i don't have to worry any longer. 8)

... about THAT disaster... ;-)

One last question, were all these files in a single directory or were there very many of directories?

they were in many directories: i had the following directories in the /media/home/salamandir path, including /Documents, /Downloads, /Dropbox, /Install, /Music, /Pictures and /Torrents that had many files and subdirectories (as you can well imagine, given that it was 31.3GB of information), and they're all back to where they should be...

i'm so happy... thank you

I ask because last week there were a few people complaining Dolphin took on large collections a looong time to populate it's window with content and they had to hit F5 to refresh.
Do you have it set to display Details or are you displaying (large) icons?
In case of the last it might have been slow as after the rename of the file structure it lost the connection with the .icons cache.

actually, all of my windows in Dolphin are set to display "Details" and i've even gone so far as to have "Tiny Icons" rather than the normal small icons, because to me, the filenames mean more to me than what kind of icon the file has... despite the fact that i don't remember what the filenames are, anyway.

i have noticed some subtle differences, however: primarily i use Firefox, and it appears that my "Default Browser" has changed to Rekonq, some, but (strangely) not all of my email is ending up in my Inbox, rather than in the subdirectories that i have filtered them into in the past, and probably other things that i don't immediately notice, but, all in all, it could be a lot worse.

once again, thank you for your patience, understanding and assistance. if you feel like sending me your mailing address, i'll send you some expensive incense, as "payment"... 8)

[Teunis]

Great to hear!!
It took a while but we were careful and worked in small steps so as not to upset things.

One last question, were all these files in a single directory or were there very many of directories?
I ask because last week there were a few people complaining Dolphin took on large collections a looong time to populate it's window with content and they had to hit F5 to refresh.
Do you have it set to display Details or are you displaying (large) icons?
In case of the last it might have been slow as after the rename of the file structure it lost the connection with the .icons cache.

[przxqgl]

Around my bedtime I would one more time use Dolphin and it's Cntr+F.
This time I suggest to use the wildcard

*.

this should make a huge list of files.

SNIP!

Now or before, in the top of Dolphin's main window you can right-click on 'name' or 'size', from the drop down menu you select Others and then put a check in front of Path.
This will show you where these files are hiding.

i did the *.jpg search, and found A WHOLE BUNCH of files, most of which i remembered immediately...

and then, WHAM! and suddenly the empty /Desktop directory had all of my stuff in it. i believe, at this point, all i have to do is move it from /Desktop one level down, and everything should be as it was.

i appreciate the help! 8) 8) 8)

[Teunis]

Around my bedtime I would one more time use Dolphin and it's Cntr+F.
This time I suggest to use the wildcard

*.

this should make a huge list of files.

You might want to start a little safer and only search for the

*.jpg

pictures you think there should be.

Or also safer go

a*.

that will only show files who's name start with an 'a'

Now or before, in the top of Dolphin's main window you can right-click on 'name' or 'size', from the drop down menu you select Others and then put a check in front of Path.
This will show you where these files are hiding.

[przxqgl]

Forgive me when I sometimes ask for what might be obvious to you but as you noted we don't know each other...

it's okay... how else are we going to get to know each other? 8)

You are sure the properties that report the thousands of files were done on the directory that otherwise seems empty?

correct. when i view /media/home/salamandir, i see two empty directories, /Desktop and /Downloads, however when i right-click in the window and choose "Properties" it tells me that 31.3GB are used for 45,227 files, which is about 13% of the 913.8GB available on the partition.

When Dolphin reports 'something' surely the list command should show at least similar.

one would think so...

Back to the terminal (or Konsole)

ls -R -1 | wc -l

This is a Recursive list command, it should give you the number of all files in this and the subdirectories.

what i get is

salamandir@Gingko:/media/home/salamandir$ ls -R -1 | wc -l
13770

Adding -a will include hidden files.

ls -R -a -1 | wc -l

that gives me:

salamandir@Gingko:/media/home/salamandir$ ls -R -a -1 | wc -l
62188

Another command would be:

find | wc -l

This should really show a similar number to what the Dophin properties report...

that gives me

salamandir@Gingko:/media/home/salamandir$ find | wc -l
48662

somewhat confusing, and definitely a step into a realm that i know nothing about... what's next? 8)

[Teunis]

Forgive me when I sometimes ask for what might be obvious to you but as you noted we don't know each other...

You are sure the properties that report the thousands of files were done on the directory that otherwise seems empty?
When Dolphin reports 'something' surely the list command should show at least similar.

Back to the terminal (or Konsole)

ls -R -1 | wc -l

This is a Recursive list command, it should give you the number of all files in this and the subdirectories.
Adding -a will include hidden files.

ls -R -a -1 | wc -l

Another command would be:

find | wc -l

This should really show a similar number to what the Dophin properties report...

[przxqgl]

Losing all your settings when renaming .kde is as expected.
The fact you lost your mail tells me you are using Kmail, because Thunderbird would be in a hidden .thunderbird file in your home, not in .kde.

i didn't actually lose any of my email, but it appears that i may have lost my filters, or, perhaps, some of the directories have been "changed" or something.

at this point, after crashing twice, once when i booted after renaming ~/.kde and once after replacing it with a ~/.kde from a backup, kmail is functioning the way i would expect.

If this had any beneficial influence on recovering the lost data fine

it didn't have any effect on the recovery of my lost data, but it did have a significant effect on the recovery of my preferences, which it would have taken me hours, if not days to reconstruct...

Dolphin properties telling you there are x-thousands of files will be based on hard fact, a good sign indeed

i figured it was... now to figure out how to make them visible.

It seems you don't see them in Dolphin?
You know how to show hidden files? (press Alt+. that's Alt plus a dot)

Another way is to use the CLI, when in Dolphin and on the 'empty' directory you press F4.
This will open a terminal in the bottom half of Dolphin with the cursor in the directory that has focus in the top half.

Type

ls -n

and hit return, you should get a list of the content with two columns of the number 1000, that's you the regular owner and group you belong to.
In case you see rows of different numbers like 1001 or 27 we'll have to fix the ownership.
In case you see nothing you can try again with

ls -a -n

, the -a makes hidden files visible.

nope. NONE of this did anything to show me where that 31.3GB is hiding... 8/

it's still there, i just can't see (or access) any of it.

[Teunis]

On a relatively new system you should not need the udev rules thing, an external drive should auto mount once you click on it in the pager or in Dolphin.

Losing all your settings when renaming .kde is as expected.
The fact you lost your mail tells me you are using Kmail, because Thunderbird would be in a hidden .thunderbird file in your home, not in .kde.

If this had any beneficial influence on recovering the lost data fine, if not you can put the original back and your mail will be back too.

Dolphin properties telling you there are x-thousands of files will be based on hard fact, a good sign indeed

It seems you don't see them in Dolphin?
You know how to show hidden files? (press Alt+. that's Alt plus a dot)

Another way is to use the CLI, when in Dolphin and on the 'empty' directory you press F4.
This will open a terminal in the bottom half of Dolphin with the cursor in the directory that has focus in the top half.

Type

ls -n

and hit return, you should get a list of the content with two columns of the number 1000, that's you the regular owner and group you belong to.
In case you see rows of different numbers like 1001 or 27 we'll have to fix the ownership.
In case you see nothing you can try again with

ls -a -n

, the -a makes hidden files visible.

[przxqgl]

and, as with many other things where i've been "hoping for the best and expecting the worst", what actually happened is somewhere in between.

i did the "/etc/udev/rules.d/99-udisks2.rules" thing, which worked, but it didn't restore my data.

i then re-named the ~/.kde directory (to ~/.130818-kde) and rebooted with the USB drive disconnected.

when it came up, i had a fresh, clean KDE, but none of my preferences were there, and when i started up email, it started at the very beginning, as though i don't have an account... i shut down email, because i don't want to re-create my accounts, and some really interesting, but for the current subject, pointless things happened...

which is sort of what i expected, but here's the interesting part for the current subject:

/media/home is there, as it should be. /media/home/salamandir is also there, but the only VISIBLE contents are an empty /Desktop directory, and an empty /Downloads directory... however, when i right click and select "Properties", it tells me that there are 31.3GB taken up by 45,277 files in /media/home

which is a very strong indication that my data is still extant... once again, however, i haven't the first clue how to access it... so here's what i'm thinking.

/media/backup contains backups of my /home/salamandir directory. is there any reason why i cannot unzip one of the backed-up archives, retrieve the /home/salamandir/.kde directory from one of those, and replace my current /.kde directory with that?

my impression is that it would restore my defaults, paths, and everything to what they were before this disaster happened. is that an incorrect assumption?

UPDATE: i just couldn't be that lucky... while it did restore a lot of my defaults, it didn't restore the visibility of my files... they're still there when i select "Properties", but they're not visible or accessible... 8/

[przxqgl]

I appreciate your explanation around remembering file names and it's good to see you have a way around it using your computer's options.
Like I can't remember a person's name unless she has long hair and is curvy

yours is a software problem, mine is a hardware problem... but they both have the same results. 8)

OK, you confirmed you selected the 'move' option to get the original home to the new one.
Move will normally only delete the original after the new version has been created meaning there should still be a version of your files on the disk.

i'm wondering, as well... since the "new" /home directory was actually created at /media/salamandir/home and the data that i was hoping would not get deleted was at /media/home is it possible, after i did the "/etc/udev/rules.d/99-udisks2.rules" thing, that if i removed the ~/.kde directory with the USB drive disconnected, rebooted, and then connected the USB drive after the reboot, if the /media/home would not just "show up" along with the "new" /media/salamandir/home
directory?

or is it possible that i'm expecting too much?

About /home and ~/.kde, I accidentally/erroneously included the tilde (~) in the /home description.
The tilde stands for your /home directory so ~/.kde is the hidden kde directory in your home folder which in my case would be /home/teunis/.kde

that's what i thought, but another affect of the brain injury is that, sometimes, i have trouble determining what people really mean when they say/write things... especially if i don't know them that well... ;-)

As stated I am not at all familiar with Macs, does a G5 or Macbook have the ability to boot from a USB drive?

not that i know of... i've been a mac-head ever since i first started using computers, back in the dark ages (my first computer was a "Lisa"), but i've never tried to do things that macs weren't specifically designed to do... which is one of the big reasons i decided to start delving into linux, around 2000 or so...

Success with searching your disk.

i'm hoping for the best, but prepared for the worst... i'll know which it is soon...

[przxqgl]

Oh! Teh Googelz only showed me Harry Potter stuff. But hey, I'd be in the dark anyway -- haven't read Potter or any of the adventures of Whosemoralsarelastix. I spend too much time here on KFN! lol

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/wotcher.html

[Teunis]

I appreciate your explanation around remembering file names and it's good to see you have a way around it using your computer's options.
Like I can't remember a person's name unless she has long hair and is curvy

OK, you confirmed you selected the 'move' option to get the original home to the new one.
Move will normally only delete the original after the new version has been created meaning there should still be a version of your files on the disk.

About /home and ~/.kde, I accidentally/erroneously included the tilde (~) in the /home description.
The tilde stands for your /home directory so ~/.kde is the hidden kde directory in your home folder which in my case would be /home/teunis/.kde

As stated I am not at all familiar with Macs, does a G5 or Macbook have the ability to boot from a USB drive?
Instead of trying to burn a disk you'd be much better off with a Live USB (thumb)drive, the usb-creator tool is present in Kubuntu.

I don't know your network connection but it is generally not difficult to download an iso for this purpose.

Success with searching your disk.

[przxqgl]

it's actually something that i learned a long, long time ago... before the age of cell phones, internet tubes and the evil koch brothers... 8)