Low level hard drive reading

[Gabriel]

Hello,
I have to write linux application that will analyze disk/partition (ext3
filesystem) on really low level. It has to find/analyze files on the
disk by reading disk blocks to analyze file's headers to find out file
type and then blocks related to file to get file content. The second
part have to be searching deleted files by this blocks reading (is this
even possible?)

Can i do this in python? For example can i open disk image file and read
it block by block?
Or is there even better solution? .) I tried search web but I wasn't
successful..

I will appreciate any help. Thank you in advice..

Gabriel

 

[Kushal Kumaran]

Hello,
I have to write linux application that will analyze disk/partition
(ext3 filesystem) on really low level. It has to find/analyze files
on the disk by reading disk blocks to analyze file's headers to find
out file type and then blocks related to file to get file content.
The second part have to be searching deleted files by this blocks
reading (is this even possible?)

Can i do this in python? For example can i open disk image file and
read it block by block?
Or is there even better solution? .) I tried search web but I wasn't
successful..

I will appreciate any help. Thank you in advice..

Searching for "ext3 recovering deleted files" has this as one of the
results:

http://projects.izzysoft.de/trac/ext3undel/

That said, if you want to read the disk, you can simply open the
appropriate device (maybe one of the /dev/[hs]d*) and read it. You'll
need root access, and knowledge of the on-disk layout of the
filesystem.

Also, writing to the wrong place into this file can badly mess up your
filesystem, or even partition table. A good backup of the entire disk
is a very good idea.