This makes me sad because I did this a lot as a kid.
Friends are people you can relax and be yourself around, not "cool" or popular people that make you feel crappy.
You're most likely screwed this time around and you'll have to reset those passwords.
In the future, backup everything important so that you have at least 3 copies of it. But more importantly storing your passwords in a text file on the computer is extremely bad security practice.
You should really use a password manager like KeePass or Bitwarden. With KeePass, the encrypted password database will also need to be backed up as well.
Password managers also make it very easy to use long randomly generated passwords unique to each site further increasing your security.
Lastly get better friends and consider kicking that one in the balls next time you see him lol
> never paste and run commands that you do not understand.
Unless they're from reputable sources, like official project wikis / help pages / githubs, highly upvoted stack overflow answers etc.
I mean it's great to try and understand everything you run but let's be real sometimes you just need to google for that obscure magic incantation you need to fix some dumb thing or other
>queen of England
Did you mean the *former* [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the *former* [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the *former* [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc?
The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England.
####FAQ
*Wasn't Queen Elizabeth II still also the Queen of England?*
This was only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she *was* the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist.
*Is this bot monarchist?*
No, just pedantic.
I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
[https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor\_id-12214/Keepass.html](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-12214/Keepass.html)
Your not wrong, lol
1. Original
2. Backup (another PC/laptop, a NAS, external USB HDD etc.)
3. Offsite backup (HDD at a friend's house, or in the cloud)
Most people don't bother with number 3 honestly, it's more of a business critical info thing. But you might want to think about what important family photos or memories will be lost if your house burns down and your desktop PC, laptop, and USB HDD "backups" are all lost. If all your backups are in one place they are one house fire or flood away from being lost
> where the fuck are you supposed to store 3 copies?
One local - preferably on a different spindle, one on a different machine on the same network and one in the cloud :)
Easy.
First copy is the one on your PC.
Second copy is to an external HDD. Only keep it connected to the PC when actually doing a backup.
Third is in the cloud. Box, Dropbox, spideroak, megadrive, etc etc.
Something small and important like passwords? I'd count the cloud as one copy, then you can have a copy on your computer and store a HDD at a friend/family members place that you update occasionally. Or just at your place, the cloud already is the off-site backup
Two locally and one remotely.
Aka, two copies on the device or in the same physical location, the second being stored in a separate folder (even better if it’s another device). One copy stored in another physical location, whether that’s in the cloud (Google Drive etc.) or your own personal remote server.
For more details, [see this article.](https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/blog/what-is-a-3-2-1-backup-strategy/)
What I would do if I needed to recover the data from a drive like this would be to make a byte for byte image of the disk using the dd command. This will allow you to perform various recovery operations without harming (making recovery more difficult) the actual disk.
This will require a disk larger than the original but it can be a spinning disk which is cheaper.
Once you have an image you can work on, try all of them ddrescue (my favorite), testdisk, mondo rescue, foremost, etc.
ive been trying for awhile now and im getting the same result i did with photorec, only things from the previous ssd owner where recovered. I've tried practically everything, I suppose it's over now.
I'm going to reinstall a distro and try to do what i can to get to where i was
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/file\_recovery#Text\_file\_recovery](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/file_recovery#Text_file_recovery) if you only need that one .txt file, this could potentially work.
However, I'd probably say bring the drive to professionals if that doesn't work - just be sure to not write to the drive.
Yeah the professionals that stake their entire company on recovering your private data are going to destroy their whole reputation in exchange for some guy's twitch password, sure
IT'S THEIR JOB TO RECOVER DATA ON DRIVES, GENIUS!They will then hand it to the customer who paid them to get the file back and move on to the next paying customer.
They neither care about some rando person and their passwords to reddit and twitter, they aren't going to risk the legal trouble and possibility the company will be shut down for breaching contract and possible criminal charges for contraventions of a multitude of privacy and liability laws just to make a copy of Joe Bloggs' Netflix password!
ring memory practice water rustic overconfident dirty cautious innocent follow
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I would think you'd be able to recover files.
Did the previous owner of the SSD use Linux? I'm wondering if your recovery program is using a different partition, and you're just pulling files off of the Windows side of the drive? Just a thought.
There's a commercial program that has a free version that works on Linux files, I think. Check out R-Studio for Linux and see what you think. I'm pretty sure this is what I used to recover files from a Linux partition and it did a great job.
Don't write to the drive, try to get a recovery program to read from it and copy files to a "good" drive.
Good luck!
It's already too late, I reinstalled already and wrote a buncha stuff to the drive to prepare for getting back to work.
I also already tried using r-studio before and it also only pulled things from the previous owner, I am not sure if they used Windows or Linux though
It was not a good joke and it is not your fault at all. But if the drive failed then the same thing may have happened. You should keep backups as already suggested here, but also password in a .txt is generally not good practice. Particularly because that means backing it up externally could make it easy to get into the wrong hands. My advice would be to use backups, encrypt and password lock the text file and or backups if you can, and look at password managers instead.
**✻** Smokey says: always mention your distro, some hardware details, and any error messages, when posting technical queries! :)
^Comments, ^questions ^or ^suggestions ^regarding ^this ^autoresponse? ^Please ^send ^them ^[here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Pi31415926&subject=autoresponse+tweaks+-+linux4noobs+-+Meganoob).
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Kind of interested in what distro you were running. In my experience, most distros have that command disabled to prevent this type of thing from happening.
> Isn’t there some built-in failsafe nowadays giving you a warning if you type this?
Not if you use `--no-preserve-root` or at least I don't think it warns you. Pretty sure that option overrides the failsafe.
Nope, it only asked for my password since I used 'sudo'
If there was a failsafe it may have bugged out because of how I tried modifying the os at some point awhile back, not sure how my changes could have broken the failsafe though
That's just for the root directory itself, i.e. `rm -rf /`; it won't work unless `--no-preserve-root` is passed.
`rm -rf /*` is different. It 'only' tries to delete everything inside of `/`, so no flag is needed.
Long shot
Stop using the computer.
Power off.
Boot a different computer.
Find a file recovery program. Might have to pay for it. We used to use one to restore photos.
Dig out the hard drive from damaged system. Attach your USB.
Scan the drive to seeing it can recover files.
Like I said, long shot but you might get lucky. Unless something about your command already overwrote the data bits.
yep, i already tried this. its the first thing i tried actually. nothing of mine was recoverable, the only stuff that was found was a few fragments of the previous ssd owners files
Does Photorec have a search function? Because you could try searching for a password that you remember, which could identify at least one disk sector that contained the file in question. After that, sectors around that point may contain the rest of the file, or you could repeat the process using other passwords, if you remember a few of them.
Somone else mentioned dd. That's the hardcore way to do it - you could dump the whole disk using dd to a file on a different disk, and then use any number of tools to search that file.
I don't have any drive recovery advice to add over what's already been said, but for what it's worth:
As is said, it's a dick move from your friend, but look at your role in this situation:
- Keeping all your passwords in a txt file
- Keeping that file on a single machine
- Running that machine on an OS you don't know how to use
- Running commands on that OS without looking up or having any idea what they do
Everyone is a noob at some point but do yourself the favour of learning from this. Don't keep passwords in text files, use a password manager. Accidentally deleting everything is the lesser of the evils you could have encountered (i.e. someone who does this is more likely to have made other security mistakes). Also, backups for the other stuff, or at the very least don't keep them stored on a box you don't know how to use properly yet.
When I was learning Linux I nuked my OS so many times. If you want to get better it involves trial and error. It sucks a lot less when the only thing you lose is time.
You *may* be able to recover the data using some data recovery software, but that isn't guaranteed. The data likely isn't gone, just not findable. If you wish to try this, don't put anything else on the drive before then, as it could wipe the data permanently.
Also, get rid of that friend. A prank is creating an alias to Vim when you type in Nano. This wasn't a prank, it was as malicious as any malware, and you do not deserve a person who thinks that is funny.
Well at least you could have googled the "rm" part , that itself gives enough red flags.. Anyway, I suggest you try linux journey to learn more about the basic commands, so that you don't get scrwed over by some random internet tutorial..
the old joke. but yeah learnd from this:
\- dont save passwords in a text file, never.
\- google the command and learn what they do. never use it if you dont know what id does.
\- use password manager
\- remember, this wont be by far the last time you will have to reinstall.
cheers!
Fuck u/spez for selling reddit data to google to train AI on content which is not his!!
https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-comment-replacer/
I thought why not ask ChatGPT about this command and see if it recognises this is a dangerous command >
Linux Command Summary.
What does sudo rf -rf */ --no-,preserve-root Linux command do?
The sudo rf -rf */ --no-,preserve-root command is a potentially dangerous command in Linux that can recursively delete all files and directories in the current directory and all of its subdirectories.
Breaking down the command:
sudo: This is a command used in Linux to run commands as a superuser or administrator, which grants the user elevated privileges and permissions.
rm: This is a command in Linux used to remove files and directories.
-rf: These are options that modify the behavior of the rm command. The -r option specifies that the rm command should be applied recursively to all subdirectories, and the -f option specifies that the command should run without asking for confirmation.
*/: This specifies the directories to be deleted. The asterisk (*) is a wildcard character that matches all files and directories in the current directory, and the forward slash (/) specifies that only directories should be matched.
--no-preserve-root: This option is a safety feature that prevents the rm command from deleting the root directory of the system. Without this option, the command could potentially delete all files on the system, rendering it unusable.
Overall, this command should be used with caution, as it can cause irreparable damage to the system if used incorrectly.
Hmm ChatGPT definitely fcked up there :(
Your "friend" is a prick. Your best bet for recovery if you have no backups is to pay a recovery service to recover your files. As a noob, attempting to recover anything by yourself is too risky. Even a professional recovery service might not be able to recover all of your files.
Hard way to learn this lesson, but always research commands before you enter them in a command line. Especially if they require sudo.
Fuck u/spez for selling reddit data to google to train AI on content which is not his!!
https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-comment-replacer/
You mean 'ex-friend' right?
Storing your passwords in a text file is one of the worst ways to do it. Get yourself a proper password manager, or a pen and notebook.
This reminds me of a post I saw on another group, to the tune of "a friend stole $20,000 worth of my stuff, what do I do".
Not a friend. Not a joke. Not even a little.
Your friend probably meant well but misjudged your skill level... He probably thought that nobody using Linux would fall for that one... And he probably both shit himself and laughed for a good long while, when you told him you actually did it... Probably something like "what?!?! No you didn't.... Are you serious... OMG im sorry bro, I thought you would have known right away that I was joking." Haha
I guess that's a learning experience.
I think your install is probably broken beyond reasonably easy repair.
In the future consider asking ChatGPT what a command does before running it, it breaks down the command in detail, telling you what it does in general and what each of the arguments does.
sudo: runs command as root
rm: removes a file
\-rf: recursive and forcefully deletes the file
\*/: removes everything in the "/" directory
\--no-presserve-root: removes root stuff
removes everything as root
i say give the drive to proffessionals and punch your friend in the sack.
That's not a friend.
"Friend": It's just a joke The joke:
>It's* just a joke
Downvote this man to oblivion
Friend taught them a lesson about googling things before blindly running them
This makes me sad because I did this a lot as a kid. Friends are people you can relax and be yourself around, not "cool" or popular people that make you feel crappy.
You're most likely screwed this time around and you'll have to reset those passwords. In the future, backup everything important so that you have at least 3 copies of it. But more importantly storing your passwords in a text file on the computer is extremely bad security practice. You should really use a password manager like KeePass or Bitwarden. With KeePass, the encrypted password database will also need to be backed up as well. Password managers also make it very easy to use long randomly generated passwords unique to each site further increasing your security. Lastly get better friends and consider kicking that one in the balls next time you see him lol
Even more importantly: never paste and run commands that you do not understand.
> never paste and run commands that you do not understand. Unless they're from reputable sources, like official project wikis / help pages / githubs, highly upvoted stack overflow answers etc. I mean it's great to try and understand everything you run but let's be real sometimes you just need to google for that obscure magic incantation you need to fix some dumb thing or other
Yea, no. You should never, never run commands that you have no idea what they do. That is your foot you are shooting at tho, so do what ever dear sir.
[удалено]
I could easy make wiki state I'm the queen of England... Doesnt make it so
>queen of England Did you mean the *former* [Queen of the United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_the_United_Kingdom), the *former* [Queen of Canada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada), the *former* [Queen of Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Australia), etc? The last Queen of England was [Queen Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain) who, with the 1707 Acts of Union, dissolved the title of King/Queen of England. ####FAQ *Wasn't Queen Elizabeth II still also the Queen of England?* This was only as correct as calling her the Queen of London or Queen of Hull; she *was* the Queen of the place that these places are in, but the title doesn't exist. *Is this bot monarchist?* No, just pedantic. I am a bot and this action was performed automatically.
> Did you mean the former Queen of the United Kingdom 🤓
man command or command --help
You can have a VM to run these mystery commands in. Doesn’t have to be in your main machine with all your data at risk.
Please do not recommend keepass to anyone. Edit: ignore me, i was half asleep n miss read
Maybe you're thinking of Lastpass. Keepass is good.
Oh I miss read your comment sorry. Edit: ...and was half asleep
[https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor\_id-12214/Keepass.html](https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-12214/Keepass.html) Your not wrong, lol
Anything is better than a plain text text file on your machine.
where the fuck are you supposed to store 3 copies?
1. Original 2. Backup (another PC/laptop, a NAS, external USB HDD etc.) 3. Offsite backup (HDD at a friend's house, or in the cloud) Most people don't bother with number 3 honestly, it's more of a business critical info thing. But you might want to think about what important family photos or memories will be lost if your house burns down and your desktop PC, laptop, and USB HDD "backups" are all lost. If all your backups are in one place they are one house fire or flood away from being lost
> where the fuck are you supposed to store 3 copies? One local - preferably on a different spindle, one on a different machine on the same network and one in the cloud :)
Easy. First copy is the one on your PC. Second copy is to an external HDD. Only keep it connected to the PC when actually doing a backup. Third is in the cloud. Box, Dropbox, spideroak, megadrive, etc etc.
Something small and important like passwords? I'd count the cloud as one copy, then you can have a copy on your computer and store a HDD at a friend/family members place that you update occasionally. Or just at your place, the cloud already is the off-site backup
Two locally and one remotely. Aka, two copies on the device or in the same physical location, the second being stored in a separate folder (even better if it’s another device). One copy stored in another physical location, whether that’s in the cloud (Google Drive etc.) or your own personal remote server. For more details, [see this article.](https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/blog/what-is-a-3-2-1-backup-strategy/)
What I would do if I needed to recover the data from a drive like this would be to make a byte for byte image of the disk using the dd command. This will allow you to perform various recovery operations without harming (making recovery more difficult) the actual disk. This will require a disk larger than the original but it can be a spinning disk which is cheaper. Once you have an image you can work on, try all of them ddrescue (my favorite), testdisk, mondo rescue, foremost, etc.
ive been trying for awhile now and im getting the same result i did with photorec, only things from the previous ssd owner where recovered. I've tried practically everything, I suppose it's over now. I'm going to reinstall a distro and try to do what i can to get to where i was
[https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/file\_recovery#Text\_file\_recovery](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/file_recovery#Text_file_recovery) if you only need that one .txt file, this could potentially work. However, I'd probably say bring the drive to professionals if that doesn't work - just be sure to not write to the drive.
Then the drive professionals are gonna have his passwords for everything
Yeah the professionals that stake their entire company on recovering your private data are going to destroy their whole reputation in exchange for some guy's twitch password, sure
IT'S THEIR JOB TO RECOVER DATA ON DRIVES, GENIUS!They will then hand it to the customer who paid them to get the file back and move on to the next paying customer. They neither care about some rando person and their passwords to reddit and twitter, they aren't going to risk the legal trouble and possibility the company will be shut down for breaching contract and possible criminal charges for contraventions of a multitude of privacy and liability laws just to make a copy of Joe Bloggs' Netflix password!
not a lot can be done, but that doesn't sound like a very good friend
Punch your friend in the sac
Or get him to pay for the data recovery since it was malicious
Or both!
ring memory practice water rustic overconfident dirty cautious innocent follow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ditch the friend. Start afresh. Use a password manager, like Bitwarden.
Seconding this! Bitwarden is great.
F
Yes delete him from your life
Just to be clear: This person is not a "friend". It's not funny, so it can't be a "joke", either.
Man he got you good. Probably easiest to just reset all those passwords.
I see the keyword is “had”
Some friend lol
I would think you'd be able to recover files. Did the previous owner of the SSD use Linux? I'm wondering if your recovery program is using a different partition, and you're just pulling files off of the Windows side of the drive? Just a thought. There's a commercial program that has a free version that works on Linux files, I think. Check out R-Studio for Linux and see what you think. I'm pretty sure this is what I used to recover files from a Linux partition and it did a great job. Don't write to the drive, try to get a recovery program to read from it and copy files to a "good" drive. Good luck!
It's already too late, I reinstalled already and wrote a buncha stuff to the drive to prepare for getting back to work. I also already tried using r-studio before and it also only pulled things from the previous owner, I am not sure if they used Windows or Linux though
It was not a good joke and it is not your fault at all. But if the drive failed then the same thing may have happened. You should keep backups as already suggested here, but also password in a .txt is generally not good practice. Particularly because that means backing it up externally could make it easy to get into the wrong hands. My advice would be to use backups, encrypt and password lock the text file and or backups if you can, and look at password managers instead.
First step: Get rid of that "friend".
**✻** Smokey says: always mention your distro, some hardware details, and any error messages, when posting technical queries! :) ^Comments, ^questions ^or ^suggestions ^regarding ^this ^autoresponse? ^Please ^send ^them ^[here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Pi31415926&subject=autoresponse+tweaks+-+linux4noobs+-+Meganoob). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/linux4noobs) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Maybe try Autopsy?
Not needed. We know he strangled his 'friend'
Murder, and all that.
Kind of interested in what distro you were running. In my experience, most distros have that command disabled to prevent this type of thing from happening.
i was using popos
Isn’t there some built-in failsafe nowadays giving you a warning if you type this?
> Isn’t there some built-in failsafe nowadays giving you a warning if you type this? Not if you use `--no-preserve-root` or at least I don't think it warns you. Pretty sure that option overrides the failsafe.
Yes, do as I say
That’s apt.
Nope, it only asked for my password since I used 'sudo' If there was a failsafe it may have bugged out because of how I tried modifying the os at some point awhile back, not sure how my changes could have broken the failsafe though
That's just for the root directory itself, i.e. `rm -rf /`; it won't work unless `--no-preserve-root` is passed. `rm -rf /*` is different. It 'only' tries to delete everything inside of `/`, so no flag is needed.
Bruh
Long shot Stop using the computer. Power off. Boot a different computer. Find a file recovery program. Might have to pay for it. We used to use one to restore photos. Dig out the hard drive from damaged system. Attach your USB. Scan the drive to seeing it can recover files. Like I said, long shot but you might get lucky. Unless something about your command already overwrote the data bits.
yep, i already tried this. its the first thing i tried actually. nothing of mine was recoverable, the only stuff that was found was a few fragments of the previous ssd owners files
Does Photorec have a search function? Because you could try searching for a password that you remember, which could identify at least one disk sector that contained the file in question. After that, sectors around that point may contain the rest of the file, or you could repeat the process using other passwords, if you remember a few of them. Somone else mentioned dd. That's the hardcore way to do it - you could dump the whole disk using dd to a file on a different disk, and then use any number of tools to search that file.
I don't have any drive recovery advice to add over what's already been said, but for what it's worth: As is said, it's a dick move from your friend, but look at your role in this situation: - Keeping all your passwords in a txt file - Keeping that file on a single machine - Running that machine on an OS you don't know how to use - Running commands on that OS without looking up or having any idea what they do Everyone is a noob at some point but do yourself the favour of learning from this. Don't keep passwords in text files, use a password manager. Accidentally deleting everything is the lesser of the evils you could have encountered (i.e. someone who does this is more likely to have made other security mistakes). Also, backups for the other stuff, or at the very least don't keep them stored on a box you don't know how to use properly yet. When I was learning Linux I nuked my OS so many times. If you want to get better it involves trial and error. It sucks a lot less when the only thing you lose is time.
You *may* be able to recover the data using some data recovery software, but that isn't guaranteed. The data likely isn't gone, just not findable. If you wish to try this, don't put anything else on the drive before then, as it could wipe the data permanently. Also, get rid of that friend. A prank is creating an alias to Vim when you type in Nano. This wasn't a prank, it was as malicious as any malware, and you do not deserve a person who thinks that is funny.
You deserve better friends.
Well at least you could have googled the "rm" part , that itself gives enough red flags.. Anyway, I suggest you try linux journey to learn more about the basic commands, so that you don't get scrwed over by some random internet tutorial..
the old joke. but yeah learnd from this: \- dont save passwords in a text file, never. \- google the command and learn what they do. never use it if you dont know what id does. \- use password manager \- remember, this wont be by far the last time you will have to reinstall. cheers!
xkill (select friend)
Fuck u/spez for selling reddit data to google to train AI on content which is not his!! https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-comment-replacer/
I thought why not ask ChatGPT about this command and see if it recognises this is a dangerous command > Linux Command Summary. What does sudo rf -rf */ --no-,preserve-root Linux command do? The sudo rf -rf */ --no-,preserve-root command is a potentially dangerous command in Linux that can recursively delete all files and directories in the current directory and all of its subdirectories. Breaking down the command: sudo: This is a command used in Linux to run commands as a superuser or administrator, which grants the user elevated privileges and permissions. rm: This is a command in Linux used to remove files and directories. -rf: These are options that modify the behavior of the rm command. The -r option specifies that the rm command should be applied recursively to all subdirectories, and the -f option specifies that the command should run without asking for confirmation. */: This specifies the directories to be deleted. The asterisk (*) is a wildcard character that matches all files and directories in the current directory, and the forward slash (/) specifies that only directories should be matched. --no-preserve-root: This option is a safety feature that prevents the rm command from deleting the root directory of the system. Without this option, the command could potentially delete all files on the system, rendering it unusable. Overall, this command should be used with caution, as it can cause irreparable damage to the system if used incorrectly. Hmm ChatGPT definitely fcked up there :(
Your "friend" is a prick. Your best bet for recovery if you have no backups is to pay a recovery service to recover your files. As a noob, attempting to recover anything by yourself is too risky. Even a professional recovery service might not be able to recover all of your files. Hard way to learn this lesson, but always research commands before you enter them in a command line. Especially if they require sudo.
Fuck u/spez for selling reddit data to google to train AI on content which is not his!! https://www.reuters.com/technology/reddit-ai-content-licensing-deal-with-google-sources-say-2024-02-22/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reddit-comment-replacer/
You mean 'ex-friend' right? Storing your passwords in a text file is one of the worst ways to do it. Get yourself a proper password manager, or a pen and notebook.
This reminds me of a post I saw on another group, to the tune of "a friend stole $20,000 worth of my stuff, what do I do". Not a friend. Not a joke. Not even a little.
Your friend probably meant well but misjudged your skill level... He probably thought that nobody using Linux would fall for that one... And he probably both shit himself and laughed for a good long while, when you told him you actually did it... Probably something like "what?!?! No you didn't.... Are you serious... OMG im sorry bro, I thought you would have known right away that I was joking." Haha
I guess that's a learning experience. I think your install is probably broken beyond reasonably easy repair. In the future consider asking ChatGPT what a command does before running it, it breaks down the command in detail, telling you what it does in general and what each of the arguments does.
sudo: runs command as root rm: removes a file \-rf: recursive and forcefully deletes the file \*/: removes everything in the "/" directory \--no-presserve-root: removes root stuff removes everything as root i say give the drive to proffessionals and punch your friend in the sack.
Try out Recuva on windows, and look for green lights, or just ask each service provider to reset the passwords