Sun Jun 18, 2023 4:32 pm
Well, it's possible, but not easy. Depends on how valuable such deleted files might be... if it's worth the effort, here's a brief howto:
1) Do not touch or boot or do anything with that device, all usual rules for data recovery apply
2) You will have to netboot the correct OpenWRT image for your device architecture, so prepare DHCP + TFTP server etc. Upon boot it usually gets 192.168.1.1 with ssh access, read the openwrt documentation and wiki for more details.
3) Once you have remote access, you will have to dump the nand flash. You can for example use dd to copy /dev/mtdpartX to /tmp first and then download it from the device tftp put.
4) Test everything using other device that you are not recovering first, so you know what you are doing. Then dump the device with deleted files.
5) Once you have data partition dump, you can use various tools that support ext3 filesystem to recover the deleted files, from linux commandline tools to software like DMDE or R-Studio.
Good thing about having it dumped is you can now keep trying various software safely until you get some result. And device can now be used again, as everything important have been dumped.