As the mayority of my OS4.1 partitions are SFS/2 and I don't know really much about this filesystem I have some questions.

Some sayed on this forum that SFS has a recycled bin dir created with the files deleted.Partition wizard only handles FFS completely so:

How can I access the files deleted on SFS and delete them if possible?

What tools are prepared to optimize the usage of SFS?

How can I take advantage of them?

How does SFS works on the Amiga?

I ask this because I have a partition called DOWNLOADS and I want to be secure to delete and eliminate something in order to backup my OS4.1 files.And I have serious doubts about what to do on my other partitions with SFS.

Any ideas or comments will be highly appreciated.

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@newlight
I do not understand "I want to be secure to delete and eliminate something in order to backup my OS4.1 files", so I can't properly answer your questions:

SFS's deleted file folder is called ".recycled" (without the quotes), but it is normally invisible, and so you cannot access it from Workbench. You can easily access it in the Shell:

CD MyPartition:.recycled
Dir

Where "MyPartition" is the name of your SFS partition/volume.


If you want to access it from Workbench, then try this: Create a new drawer called "Foo" within MyPartition (using the menu item Window/New drawer). Now do this from the Shell:

CD MyPartition:
Rename Foo.info .recycled.info
Delete Foo

Now you can open the .recycled folder from Workbench :) . Feel free to delete files in there if you want!

Last edited by ChrisH on 04-Sep-2009 at 05:55 PM.

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@ChrisH

Thank you very much!

I tried the commands on the shell and yes there later appeared the ".recycled" dir with its files.

It is important to cleanup my HD of unused files.

I will do the same for all the partitions later.

And I point that I want to delete these files to make a clean backup of my downloads.

_________________
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AMIGA 500 German
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AMIGA 1300 030/50 Mhz/32 MB WB 3.9 with lots of games&demos
AMIGA ONE XE G3 PPC 800 Mhz/1 GB RAM/RADEON 9250 128 MB/SATA CONTROLLER

@newlight
The deleted files (within .recycled folder) do NOT use space. So deleting the "deleted files" will not increase free space.

_________________
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@ChrisH

Ah,OK.

Can you tell me if I can delete the .recycled dir in any way?

_________________
AMIGA 500 1.5 MB ACA500/ACA1232 accelerators
AMIGA 500 German
CD32 unexpanded
Amiga 1200 Tower on AmigaKit since years
AMIGA 1300 030/50 Mhz/32 MB WB 3.9 with lots of games&demos
AMIGA ONE XE G3 PPC 800 Mhz/1 GB RAM/RADEON 9250 128 MB/SATA CONTROLLER

@newlight

In a shell, just do a "delete #?" in the .recycled directory. The SFS .recycled directory will be ignored when making backups. If you delete or change a file, the old file gets saved in the .recycled directory, very handy if you screw up & need to retrieve a config file. I've had to do this a few times on my SYS: partition. The .recycled directory will only hold something like 343 files, any new additions will push out another file to make room. Basically, no real reason to delete any files in the .recycled directory as they are only temp backups & just might save your butt some day. Like others have said, the files don't take any room as there only index place settings in case you need to bring the file back from the dead.

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@newlight
There is NO need to delete the .recycled folder itself. There is not really any reason to delete files inside either...

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It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH
Quote:

I do not understand "I want to be secure to delete and eliminate something in order to backup my OS4.1 files"

I'm not sure what he wants to secure but your explanation has made me realize that all my passwords, PINs etc. are not actually secure. I keep that info in an encrypted file which I decrypt to RAM: when I want to add/delete some info. I save the file and encrypt it back to my hard-disk; after which I delete the backup that my text editor automatically saves. Now, thanks to you, I know that the unencrypted file is sitting right on my hard-disk anyway. Arggg! Is there a way to disable the SFS recycle feature?

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X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@ChrisH
Quote:

The deleted files (within .recycled folder) do NOT use space. So deleting the "deleted files" will not increase free space.

Maybe not, but that implies that they will be overwritten as the partition fills up. It seems to me that SFS would have to slow down if it's constantly adjusting the .recycled directory as new files are added to a nearly full partition. Is there some limit on the number of files SFS will keep in the .recycled directory?

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X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@Xenic

Well, if you open the file from the RAM: disk, there's no real issue as that doesn't run SFS and does not contain a .recycled dir... Unless your editor saves the backup file to the HD, in which case you will have to find the backups and delete them.

As an aside, you can format an SFS partition specifying not to create a .recycled folder, in which case it will behave like a normal partition, i.e. delete something and it's gone.

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@Xenic Quote:

Now ... I know that the unencrypted file is sitting right on my hard-disk anyway.

A deleted file always *was* sitting on your harddisk, even when using FFS or FAT: All deleting does is remove it from the filingsystem's "index" of known files - it NEVER wiped the actual data (which will sit there until it is accidentally overwritten by another file).

All SFS is doing is making that deleted (hidden but still present) file easily accessible, rather than requiring someone to run some "undelete" procedure (e.g. DiskSalv for FFS).


Therefore deleting files from SFS's ".recycled" folder does NOTHING for security. What you need to do is "wipe" the file before deleting it, by filling it with zeros (or random garbage). Then the file is useless (whether accessed by .recycled or using an undelete procedure).

Even better, never write unencrypted files to harddisk, only do in the RAM disk. Then there is nothing to wipe on the harddisk

Last edited by ChrisH on 10-Sep-2009 at 09:58 AM.

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@newlight

To remove the ".recycled" dir permanently you'll have to reformat the partition with sfsformat and the parameter NORECYCLED.

BTW, there is a new parameter for delete (OS4) for making the restoring of an file very hard (it does overwrite the content several times with different values). I don't know the name right now but it could be "WIPE". Just look into the documentation.

@ChrisH

"by ChrisH on 8-Sep-2009 20:52:06

@newlight
The deleted files (within .recycled folder) do NOT use space. So deleting the "deleted files" will not increase free space."

I think then I make a mistake when I deleted the contents of the OS4.1 partition .recycled dir believing it will free some disk space.
Following the ideas of ChrisH.

Last edited by newlight on 11-Sep-2009 at 03:21 PM.
Last edited by newlight on 11-Sep-2009 at 03:18 PM.

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AMIGA ONE XE G3 PPC 800 Mhz/1 GB RAM/RADEON 9250 128 MB/SATA CONTROLLER

@sundown

My OS4.1 partition .recycled dir doesn't open now.Why this?

Is the .recycled dir I left empty last week because I thinked it was right with some advice from here.Yes I deleted all inside it.

When I deleted its contents I renamed it to Foo again and moved it to the trashcan,then moved it from there and renamed to .recycled.

What do you think about this changes I made?

Last edited by newlight on 11-Sep-2009 at 03:32 PM.

_________________
AMIGA 500 1.5 MB ACA500/ACA1232 accelerators
AMIGA 500 German
CD32 unexpanded
Amiga 1200 Tower on AmigaKit since years
AMIGA 1300 030/50 Mhz/32 MB WB 3.9 with lots of games&demos
AMIGA ONE XE G3 PPC 800 Mhz/1 GB RAM/RADEON 9250 128 MB/SATA CONTROLLER

@ChrisH
Quote:

Even better, never write unencrypted files to harddisk, only do in the RAM disk. Then there is nothing to wipe on the harddisk

That's what I've been doing but I have TurboText set to do automatic backups; which is a good idea for normal files. I simply deleted the backup after editing and encrypting a file.
Since I switched to SFS partitions recently and now know about the recycled directory, I have set up a special TurboText startup that has backups turned off. I'll use that version for editing my sensitive files and avoid having the unencrypted version of those files written to disk at all. Thanks for the tips.

Last edited by Xenic on 11-Sep-2009 at 04:09 PM.

_________________
X1000 with 2GB memory & OS4.1FE

@newlight Quote:

When I deleted its contents I renamed it to Foo again and moved it to the trashcan,then moved it from there and renamed to .recycled.

HOW did you "rename it to Foo"? Using Shell or Workbench?

If you used Workbench, then you may have corrupted the .recycled folder. Without us having direct access to your Amiga, it will be difficult to tell what has happened...

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It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

Yes I renamed it from Workbench thinking that I could empty and later delete it as if was never been there.

What can I do now?

_________________
AMIGA 500 1.5 MB ACA500/ACA1232 accelerators
AMIGA 500 German
CD32 unexpanded
Amiga 1200 Tower on AmigaKit since years
AMIGA 1300 030/50 Mhz/32 MB WB 3.9 with lots of games&demos
AMIGA ONE XE G3 PPC 800 Mhz/1 GB RAM/RADEON 9250 128 MB/SATA CONTROLLER

@newlight

Quote:

What can I do now?

Backup, re-format, & restore the partition.

_________________
Hate tends to make you look stupid...

@newlight Quote:

Yes I renamed it from Workbench

Then you have renamed the .recycled folder itself (not just the icon/.info file). Unfortunately I have *no* idea how SFS will handle this situation. Without experimenting myself, your best bet is to follow sundown's advice...

Just make sure you have TWO backups of everything (on different partitions, DVD-RWs, etc), AND check that the backups are working, before formatting. That way you can't possibly loose anything, even if you do something wrong.

_________________
Author of the PortablE programming language.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue...

@ChrisH

From SFS.guide:

Quote:

The Recycled directory itself will only get created during formatting. It is not possible to create a '.recycled' directory afterwards (atleast not for now). The Recycled directory can't be deleted, but you are allowed to rename it. It is even possible to move it into a subdirectory.

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