Any way to keep file names and folders?

[Robertoisrad]

First off its kind of sad/funny that I posted here almost exactly two years ago for a similar circumstance...If only I learned

So! I had been using an old desktop computer for the last year and a half for a file server. The old file server ran off of Debian Linux, OpenMediaVault if it matters. The business next to my work was tossing an old server so I got it, yay upgrade!

Knowing that I am careless and that cloud backup is starting to get really cheap I changed my OS from Linux to Microsoft Server 2012 R2 to take advantage of the easy cloud programs that are windows or mac only. In the process of converting the drives from ext4 to Refs and NTFS I accidentally deleted a bunch of data... and to make matters worse I left file transfers going overnight onto the mistake drive.

My two hopes for back up:
The original drive with the data I want is 2tb and was ext4 and now is NTFS. I have copied new data onto it, about 50-60% of the total space is used.

My second drive is 4tb and it had incremental backups of that 2tb drive done twice a day. It was ext4 now it is Refs. I have copied new data onto it, about 20-30% of the total space used.

Running R-linux under windows (let me know if I should by using something else) I am able to scan both drives no problem. The old partitions along with the names I had given the partitions are detected and dark green. However when I try to access the old data I have no folders or filenames detected at all. I have three folders available Root, Extra Found Files, and Metafiles. Under "Root" I have a ton of files named "$Inodexxxxxx" but nothing that looks helpful. Under "Extra Found Files" it appears to have my old data but no names or folder structure whatsoever. And "Metafiles" is also files that don't look helpful.

Are the file names gone for good? I'm no data expert if there's an advanced setting or offset that needs to be ticked I'm all ears. Would a pro be able to get the file names back? It's almost 2tb of data and it would take forever to rename and re arrange everything.

Thanks for reading!

[Data-Medics]

Most likely file names are permanently gone, and even a Pro can't help. The file tables are stored in the beginning and that was overwritten on both drives. You could try using a tool called Attribute Magic Pro to rename the files based on creation date, author, and other metadata contained within the files. It'll help some.

[Robertoisrad]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm currently running a scan with another competitor's software. So far it looks really promising, I'm only at 5% but it's got a lot of file names showing so far!