Getting data back after git reset --hard

Question

I accidentally did :

git fetch && git reset --hard origin/mybranch

on production and looks like I am busted. There were some changes made but added using git add and git commit. How could I get my data back?

I tried:

git reflog
git reset HEAD@{1}

but I cannot see the changes made. How could I get them back?

Possible duplicate of [How can I undo git reset --hard HEAD~1?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5473/how-can-i-undo-git-reset-hard-head1) — MrTux, Apr 10 '18 at 12:23
Try using `git show` with various `git reflog` entries, maybe it's stored a bit farther down. — choroba, Apr 10 '18 at 12:23
@MrTux I tried that, but it did not help me. Could you help me with this? — Jatt, Apr 10 '18 at 12:24
May you add the output of `git reflog` to the question and show us which commit you'd like to get back to? — evolutionxbox, Apr 10 '18 at 13:49
What do you mean by "on production". Did you push force to the remote? — k0pernikus, Apr 10 '18 at 14:41

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 10 '18 at 14:16

Check your git status.

If you ran git reset HEAD@{1} (instead of git reset --hard HEAD@{1}) the files on disk will not be changed, and will still hold the content of origin/mybranch.
These files will appear as modified in git status.

If such is the case, just discard these changes :

git checkout .

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 10 '18 at 23:37

When you git add a file, it will add that file to the object database and place the object information in the staging area. When you run a git reset, the file is removed from the index, but it is not removed from the object database. As a result, you can examine the object database for objects that are "dangling".

For example:

If I create a new file and git add it:

% echo "new file" > newfile.txt
% git add newfile.txt
% git ls-files --stage
100644 40ee2647744341be918c15f1d0c5e85de4ddc5ed 0       file.txt
100644 3748764a2c3a132adff709b1a6cd75499c11b966 0       newfile.txt

And then I reset, notice that newfile.txt disappears from the index:

% git reset --hard origin/mybranch
% git ls-files --stage
100644 40ee2647744341be918c15f1d0c5e85de4ddc5ed 0       file.txt

However, the file remains in the object database, and can be recovered. The easiest way to do this is to download and install the git-recover program in interactive mode:

% git recover -i
Recoverable orphaned git blobs:

3748764a2c3a132adff709b1a6cd75499c11b966  (Thu 15 Jun 2017 12:20:22 CEST)
> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod
> tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
> veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea
> commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate

Recover this file? [y,n,v,f,q,?]:

git-recover looks for files in the object database that are not committed (or in the index). You can find out more about git-recover in the blog post announcing it.

Getting data back after git reset --hard

2 Answers2