bzip2recover
Recover data from damaged bzip2 files
TLDR
Recover data from damaged file
SYNOPSIS
bzip2recover file.bz2
DESCRIPTION
bzip2recover attempts to recover data from damaged bzip2 compressed files. It works by extracting intact blocks from corrupted .bz2 files, potentially recovering some or most of the data.
The tool is useful when bzip2 files become corrupted and normal decompression fails.
OPERATION
The tool:
1. Scans the damaged .bz2 file for valid block boundaries
2. Extracts each intact block to separate files (rec00001.bz2, rec00002.bz2, etc.)
3. Each recovered file can be decompressed independently
WORKFLOW
bzip2recover damaged.bz2
# This creates: rec00001damaged.bz2, rec00002damaged.bz2, etc.
# Decompress recovered blocks
bunzip2 rec*damaged.bz2
# Manually combine recovered data if needed
cat rec*damaged > recovered.txt
FEATURES
- Block-level recovery
- No modification of original file
- Works with partially corrupted files
- Creates separate files per block
CAVEATS
Cannot recover completely destroyed data. Recovery depends on block boundaries being intact. May only recover partial file. Recovered blocks need manual combination. Not guaranteed to work. Prevention (backups) better than recovery.
HISTORY
bzip2recover has been included with bzip2 since version 1.0 in 2000 to help recover from corruption.