Ok, thanks again, I checked out the links you gave however they do not access the raw drive since it's the deleted files I need to get out of the underlying ("dead") filesystem and not the "live" active file system. In any event, that's the second part of my question as I'm more curious about the best way to jailbreak the 3GS phone running iOS 4.2.1 in a way that will let me back up what is now on the phone first
which has a different set of apps, notepads, etc than iTunes thinks the phone has
Just to detail my situation more clearly
. I have a MacBook Pro that at the time was running 10.4.11. It ran out of disk space on the OS X side, so I decided to delete the iTunes backup and instead do it under Windows XP which I did have disk space for running under Parallels virtual desktop on the same machine. So, I installed iTunes under Windows and started the 4.2.1 install. It popped up the question about whether to download 4.2.1 or download and install it. I choose the latter. That was a mistake. It was a mistake because although the Windows iTunes did back up the phone (I actually saw it while it was in progress -- I mean the files) iTunes crashed at the end (after the backup and after the 4.2.1 download). And that left the phone in I think what's called DFU mode. I live in New York City so immediately went to the flagship Apple store on 5th avenue. The genius bar saw me within a few minute however as I was talking to the guy I put the phone of the table and explaining the situation including trying to get my laptop out of the bag as it got stuck so I was bending over on the floor and such. Finally I get the laptop out of the bag and he responds that everything is ok. I ask what does he mean there is this icon stuck on the phone. He says not any longer I just reset your phone. I'm like why did you even plug it in. So, to make matter worse, I try to ask him where the backup files are and he says there are none any longer. I'm like, no, I just saw them before I came here. He's like no, because I reset the phone iTunes deleted them.
So, here's my dilemma, to jailbreak the phone, copy the raw disk image, and then run some tool on it's filesystem, so basically do like the un'delete tools do. In the meantime, since this was a few weeks ago, I've been using the phone since it was wiped (which I know means at least some of my information is not lost because it's probably been written atop of) but also that I've been creating a new bunch of contacts and apps. I don't want to sync the phone to put the OS X iTunes contacts and apps that were originally on the phone back to it yet. However, I wouldn't mind getting to be able to sync to merge the current contacts and apps on the phone into the iTunes one.
Note: there are two iTunes I'm referring to above: The Windows one which is a goner because the backup got deleted when iTunes crashed (and I can run an undelete command on this disk, however, it takes hours and ends up with thousands of possibilities (which is correct)). And there is the OS X one, which should have a backup of the phone at that time except for the deletion of the videos and photos. So, how to (best ) get copies of the current notepad/contacts/apps, and then jailbreak the phone to get the disk image, and then restore the phone with merged notepad/contacts/app?
