RETRIVING DELETED RECORDS :-

I'm frequently asked how to retrieve deleted records from
an unjournaled physical file when the deleted records have
not yet been removed from the file.

Utility UNDEL lets you undelete records in a physical file.
This public domain program is available in CISC and RISC
versions, and the complete source code is available for
download at:

UNDEL for AS/400 Save File (RISC):
http://www.as400network.com/sharewarefiles/undelris.zip

UNDEL for AS/400 Save File (CISC):
http://www.as400network.com/sharewarefiles/undel.zip

UNDEL for AS/400 Save File (Source code):
http://www.as400network.com/sharewarefiles/undelsrc.zip

The utility takes advantage of the fact that deleted
records in physical files are only flagged as deleted, and
the record data still exists until it is overwritten or the
file is reorganized with a utility such as RGZPFM. UNDEL
simply reads the deleted record, then reuses the record by
writing over it with the new record (thus eliminating the
flag for the deleted record).

Some homegrown and commercial utilities copy the file
containing undeleted records to a save file, then use a
program to read the save file, which contains live and
undeleted records, to a file to undelete the records. The
UNDEL utility is superior to the SAVF technique because
there's no need to copy the file to a save file, which is
especially important for really large files.

When run, UNDEL displays the physical file records in their
unformatted, raw text form. You can either position the
display to a given relative record number or use F19 or F20
to find the previous and next deleted record, respectively.
The utility also includes online help, which is almost
unheard of for free utilities.

Other utilities include the ability to undelete records.
You can use the RTVDLTRCD command in the old QUSRTOOL (no
longer supported by IBM). QUSRTOOL is now a commercial
product called TAA Productivity Tools (
http://www.taatool.com ). The free file editor WRKDBF has a
built-in undelete capability ( http://www.wrkdbf.com ), and
several commercial file editors can undelete records. For a
complete list of file editors, go to
http://www.sourcebook400.com, select "Programmer Tools"
under "Product Category," then select "File Editors."