Recovering LOG files...

[joelen]

I AM POSTING THIS FOR A FRIEND WHO IS HAVING TROUBLE POSTING HERE....

His question...

I accidentally deleted a few hundred proxy logs files from a WinNT server.
This was done remotely over a LAN. I was foolish enough to try a shareware
analysis program on live data, and the program "optimized" my data for me.
Unfortunately it's been a few days since this little accident so the problem
may have become a bit worse. I would like to recover these files as soon as
possible. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Edit- the program he was using was "RLH Enterprises Proxy Server Log Scanning System Professional Edition Ver. 3.0"

[Medianox]

Did you make a backup??
What you can try doing is looking here:
http://www.b******.net/

Restorer2000

[ilovetheusers]

At the risk of sounding like a doof - have you looked in the recycle bin?

Log files are usually text based and pretty small so even if the're were a lot they should be small enough to go to the recycle bin.

Aside from that or recovery from backup, go with a data recovery tool. That is if the log files were on the system partition and it does not get written to very often, well at all since the deletion.

[joelen]

I have some more information.

Apparantly, the program he was using to read thru the log files has a 'purge' button. <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

Well, you guessed it- he didn't realize that 'purge' meant DELETE, even after the message that said, "Are you sure you want to DELETE YOUR LOG FILES?!".

So-- they were not sent to recyclebin, just deleted.

(I asked him to look for a UNPURGE button- there isn't one... <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0"> )

[Cygnus]

if theres been alot of activty on the system since you did this (you said it had been a while) then you may not be able to recover all those files.

[ilovetheusers]

Originally posted by joelen:
<STRONG>I have some more information.

Apparantly, the program he was using to read thru the log files has a 'purge' button. <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0">

Well, you guessed it- he didn't realize that 'purge' meant DELETE, even after the message that said, "Are you sure you want to DELETE YOUR LOG FILES?!".

So-- they were not sent to recyclebin, just deleted.

(I asked him to look for a UNPURGE button- there isn't one... <IMG SRC="smilies/smile.gif" border="0"> )</STRONG>

Bummer. He's hosed unless he does a backup of his system files.

[Alpha_alpha]

It is useless to answer to this posting but while I was reading this question I thought it is better to guide as if any one come across this forum and this type of situation, he must know how to overcome the problem. As in this case if any-one have lost their log files then they can recover it. A log file is a simple text file where all the information of all the action that have occured on the sytem or on the server. It doesnot contain any header or footer information.
A program called Stellar Phoenix Deleted File Recovery is the most comprehensive file undelete and unerase software for Windows.
To try a demo version download it from http://www.stellarinfo.com/deleted-file-recovery.htm.
Through demo version you would be able to see your recovered data.