Again running smartctl after all is said and done:
smartctl --all /dev/sda
ddrescue-smartctl-after-rescue.png ddrescue-smartctl-2.png
Yet an old drive in itself, I run the wheels off of them, and monitor regularly as anyone should.
Deleting files To delete a file you must first have write permission to it. For information about permissions, basic file permissions Once you have write permission, in a terminal run:
rm filename
There is no “Recycle Bin” in Linux so once you delete a file, it’s gone for good.
When removing files, you may use an astrix (*) as a wildcard flag to remove certain files, for example if I wanted to remove all files that began with the letter j, I would run
rm j\
If anyone tells you to run rm -rf / as root, DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM. Running this command will delete all the files/directories on your Linux system.
Deleting directories
If you have ownership to the directory and the directory is empty, you can simply type:
rmdir directoryname
To remove the directory. If the directory is not empty and you wish to simply delete it and all its contents, run:
rm -rf directoryname
Be cautious with the -rf flag, as it will remove everything in the specified directory including sub directories. With root access and the rm -rf command you can wipe out your entire system if you make an error.