*THE* classic Unix horror story | WSU Linux Users Group

If you’ve never used Unix or Linux, you may want to pass on this one. For the rest of you, this is a reminder of why the line “Think before you type” is presented to first time users of the sudo command. At some point along the way, just about everyone on a *nix system has a minor encounter with rm’s nefarious -rf flags. Thankfully mine was nowhere near this severe.

I happened upon a similar article on reddit after the one above that details how to recover files on a Linux EXT3 partition.  Like the developer mentioned in the article, this is something up until now I believed to be nearly impossible.

So, the moral of the story:  NEVER, EVER use “rm -rf,” unless you have absolutely no alternative.  (and in that case, think long and hard before hitting enter)  “Think before you type;” those are words to live by.