Recovering deleted files from ext4 partition

Update, although extundelete restrored most of my files, some files could only be restored with no file name through an application that is installed with testdisk called photorec

So, what happened was that i added a directory to eclipse, a message appears, i hit enter accidentally, all the files in the web directory are lost, no backup, years of programming…

Instantly, i shut down the computer so that i do not overwrite the disk space with new files and logs and the like, i got a larger disk (1.5tb) and did the DD first (i recommend gddrescue in place of DD just in case your disk has bad sectors).

Installed Linux (Debian 7) on the new disk, installed the hard drive from the other computer to the new PC, then installed the software i always use to recover files, testdisk, test disk did not work as expected, on both disks, when it comes to the ext4 partition, the process that ended in an error would be as follows

testdisk
create log file
Chose the 1TB disk (the one with the deleted files
Partition type (INTEL)
Advanced
Chose the main partition *(ext4) and chose List (left and right arrow keys)
Damn, the error.

TestDisk 6.13, Data Recovery Utility, November 2011
Christophe GRENIER <grenier@cgsecurity.org>
http://www.cgsecurity.org
 1 * Linux                    0  32 33 119515  60 33 1920010240
Can't open filesystem. Filesystem seems damaged.

So, i quit TestDisk and installed
apt-get install extundelete

extundelete /dev/sdb1 --restore-directory /var/www

This way, i only restore the files from that direcotry, if you want all the deleted files, you could surely use something like

extundelete /dev/sda4 --restore-all

Anyway, my files are back, a few are missing, but i am sure i can deal with that

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