Patent ID: 7921082

Claim:
A method in a data-processing system for recovering data, said data-processing system having a central processing unit coupled to an operating system, memory coupled to said central processing unit, and a command line interface to said operating system in which a user responds to a visual prompt by typing in a command on a specified line and receives a response back from the data-processing system; the method comprising: utilizing said command line interface to interact with said operating system; identifying desired data from said command line interface displayable within a display area of said data-processing system; automatically saving said desired data in said memory of said data-processing system, in response to identifying said desired data from said command line interface; testing using said data-processing system to determine if said desired data has been deleted from a command line of said command line interface; automatically recovering deleted desired data from said memory of said data-processing system for display within said command line interface in automatic response by said data-processing system to said desired data being deleted from said command line of said command line interface; automatically displaying said deleted desired data within said command line interface, in response to automatically recovering said deleted desired data from said memory; permitting the user to specify a plurality of rules for recycling said deleted desired data that the user does not wish to recover; prompting said user to specify said plurality of rules for recycling said deleted desired data through a display of a graphical user interface dialog; specifying the minimum size of said data to be recycled and/or specifying special files/empty directories not to be recycled, and recycling said deleted desired data according to said rules.