Data Recovery – Recover Deleted Files from Guest Account Desktop on Ubuntu 12.04

1. Never allow any Temporary User without a password to gain Access Control of your computer! FIRST Make a policy to prevent the single user guest from making system wide changes open text editor gksu gedit /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/10-desktop-policy.pkla insert text

[guest-policy]
Identity=unix-user:guest
Action=*
ResultAny=no
ResultInactive=no
ResultActive=no

2. open terminal and start typing

sudo addgroup --system --quiet --gid 126 guest
sudo useradd -c Guest,,, -d /tmp/guest-home.UBUNTU -m -s /bin/bash -g guest guest
sudo usermod --uid 117 --gid 126 guest

to create blank password for this account:

sudo usermod --password U6aMy0wojraho guest

to create Not asked for password on login for this account:

sudo usermod --groups nopasswdlogin guest

Edit /etc/gdm/gdm.schemas type:

gksu gedit /etc/gdm/gdm.schemas

and add guest to greeter/Include default

    <schema>
      <key>greeter/Include</key>
      <signature>s</signature>
      <default>guest</default>
    </schema>

now sudo restart gdm

NOTE: you will no longer be abel login to guest sessions from user accounts this is the new guest session and you will only be able to login from login screen any changes to this account will remain on logout until the computer restarts.

to restore open terminal and type:

sudo userdel guest

then sudo restart gdm

to copy your settings for guest session

sudo cp -R ~/.gconf/desktop /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system/
sudo cp -R ~/.gconf/apps /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system/
sudo chmod 777 -R /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system/desktop
sudo chmod 777 -R /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system/apps

It is not true that there is no way to recover them. It is true that there is no particularly reliable way to recover them. And with all the time that has passed, it is quite unlikely they could be recovered now; I'm really posting this answer for others who experience similar situations in the future.

When a file is deleted, such as files purged from /tmp, the data is not immediately destroyed, and it can persist for an extended time, and it can sometimes be recovered. See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery for information about data recovery in the context of Ubuntu.

Continuing to use your computer after you have deleted files that you want to recover significantly decreases the chance that recovery will be possible. So please do heed this warning (from DataRecovery):

You should NOT write to the failed device, as it can worsen a hardware failure, and overwrite existant data in case of lost files.

Shut down the affected machine as soon as possible, and restart it from a LiveCD or LiveUSB. Be certain that the "live" cd does not automatically mount any partition or swap space.

In other words, stop using the Ubuntu system immediately, and only boot into either (1) a different system installed on the computer, or (2) better, a live CD/DVD or live USB flash drive.

(Thanks to Joseph Kern for pointing out the importance of emphasizing the need to stop using the system if there is to be good chance of recovering deleted files.)