Is there any way to recover information from deleted folders?

[daedalus]

Hi, I just deleted some folders from my external hard drive, I don’t know if there’s a log or something that has the name of all the folders in it when it got mounted earlier today (still haven’t turned off my computer). Thankfully the files themselves are not needed anymore, but I do need to know what was in it

[megavolt]

As mentioned already:

My external HD mounts on different folders everytime I restart

That issue is a different topic. Feel free to create a new one. Just for answering the basic questions: No idea what you mean here, but in general there is no such log. In general it is difficult to get files back if even possible. Do always backups! If if you mean your external NTFS Partition on your WD Elements, then sorry. Only Windows can do this. Linux can only read, write and maybe fix simple things on NTFS. But even if it is a linux compatible filesystem it could be rather difficult…

NTFS → only testdisk available, beside it supports more file systems (also EXT2/3/4).
EXT3 → ext3grep
EXT4 → ext4magic

@daedalus

Thankfully the files themselves are not needed anymore, but I do need to know what was in it

What kind of files/folders are these?
What program access it?
What have you done?
Maybe you unplug the USB HDD while it was syncing the files to the disk in the background?

Anyway… it is bad idea to use a NTFS Partition for backups in Linux, likewise Ext4 in Windows. For exchange between systems, why not, but not for backups.

[daedalus]

@megavolt

What kind of files/folders are these?

Just lots of folders with .iso files in it.

@megavolt

What program access it?

Dolphin and konsole to delete.

@megavolt

What have you done?

i used the rm -r command on the wrong address.

@megavolt

Maybe you unplug the USB HDD while it was syncing the files to the disk in the background?

no

@megavolt

Anyway… it is bad idea to use a NTFS Partition for backups in Linux, likewise Ext4 in Windows. For exchange between systems, why not, but not for backups.

I doubt changing the file system since I use this HDD on both Linux and Windows.