Undelete / restore deleted files on ext3 is possible

For a long time I thought the only way to restore something deleted on ext3 was to cat the device and grep for known strings from the deleted files. Which:

  1. only worked for text files like like config and code files.
  2. was very cumbersome and error prone.

Anyway thanks to Carlo Wood, ext3grep and this fine tutotial about HOWTO recover deleted files on an ext3 file system which has proven me wrong. Not that I need it right now but I’ve been there and will probably end up in the situation again.