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Thread: Accidentally formatted /home partition - recovery?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    99

    Accidentally formatted /home partition - recovery?

    I was installing 10.10 x64 today. I wanted to manually partition the disks, since I have a /home partition from a 9.10 installation which I want to keep.

    Unfortunately, I selected to convert the ext3 /home partition to ext4 and didn't realise it was formatting the partition until it had just begun. In desperation, I pulled the power plug, but now I can't access the partition (using the LiveCD) - comes with an input/output error.

    What are some strategies to recover the data on the partly formatted partition? I don't think much, if any, was actually formatted.

    Thanks in advance.
    Arch 3.3.1-1 (x86_64) w/Gnome 3.2
    ASUS P7P55-E-Pro, Geforce GTX460, i5-750, 8GB
    Dell XPS m1330, Geforce 8400M, 4965AGN
    HP Folio 13 Ultrabook

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Western Ukraine
    Beans
    13
    Distro
    Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

    Re: Accidentally formatted /home partition - recovery?

    You can use TestDisk

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Beans
    99

    Re: Accidentally formatted /home partition - recovery?

    Quote Originally Posted by BACbOK View Post
    You can use TestDisk
    Thanks a lot. While waiting, I came across this thread: http://www.0x61.com/forum/viewtopic....7558&view=next

    which also recommends SystemRescueCD, which prominently features testdisk amongst other recovery utilities. Fingers crossed!
    Arch 3.3.1-1 (x86_64) w/Gnome 3.2
    ASUS P7P55-E-Pro, Geforce GTX460, i5-750, 8GB
    Dell XPS m1330, Geforce 8400M, 4965AGN
    HP Folio 13 Ultrabook

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Rawalpindi, Pakistan
    Beans
    5,669
    Distro
    Ubuntu Gnome Development Release

    Re: Accidentally formatted /home partition - recovery?

    Or if you are unable to recover whole of your partitions, you can try recovering your files using photorec.

    http://ubuntu4beginners.blogspot.com...otorec-in.html

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Beans
    99

    Re: Accidentally formatted /home partition - recovery?

    SystemRescue's suite of partition recovery utilities couldn't recover the bad, partly formatted partition (or to be more precise, I couldn't get it done with those tools).

    Next up, photorec did recover lots of files - but more of them much older than the recently formatted ones.

    Oh well - live and learn (to backup). Careless mistake really - although perhaps a little more warning or leeway in the installer when it comes to formatting and partitioning would be helpful for idiots such as myself.
    Arch 3.3.1-1 (x86_64) w/Gnome 3.2
    ASUS P7P55-E-Pro, Geforce GTX460, i5-750, 8GB
    Dell XPS m1330, Geforce 8400M, 4965AGN
    HP Folio 13 Ultrabook

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