Low level hard drive reading

[Kushal Kumaran]

On Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:36:24 +0200
Gabriel <dunmer at dreams.sk> wrote:

> 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.

-- 
kushal