Lost photos on my external hard drive

[Airycat]

I stored all my photos on my external hard drive. They were all in folders by date. When I opened them, they were jpg files. After switching to Ubuntu I went to the folder and all I find are two files.


Properties on the folder say

2 items, totalling 13.9 kB

It was all of my 2011 photos with only a few backed up elsewhere. Why would changing my OS affect my external drive? If I find my Picture Package installation disk, would installing it restore my photos?

Since it says picasa, I tried to install that, but, even though I searched and found a solved thread, following those instructions didn't help. My terminal was asking what to do next.

Any help to restore my photos will be greatly appreciated. I'm feeling a bit sick about this.

[Bucky Ball]

Where did you install Ubuntu and how did you install it? On the internal drive? If so, shouldn't have deleted your pics. Was the external plugged in while you were installing? In hindsight you are best to remove all external drives and USB sticks (unless installing from one, naturally) when installing.

Installing to the internal drive would not have deleted anything from the external in any case. Ubuntu install would not have touched or changed that device in anyway (theoretically).

Have no idea what 'Picture Package' is. Is that a name you have given the folder or some software created folder? If the latter, perhaps Linux can't read that. It can certainly read jpg files though, if they are present.

If you have a side-by-side install with Windows, boot Windows and see if they are there. Good luck.

[halitech]

firstly, unplug the external drive. The more you try to do and the more you try to read it, the less likely it is that you will be able to recover the data.

second, install testdisk

when you were doing the install, was the external connected? If it was, did you select to install anything on it or mount it in anyway?

run testdisk and sit back and pray that it is able to recover your files

[Airycat]

I did a full install on the internal drive. Didn't know I should unplug the external drive. Everything else seems to be there (though I can't be 100% certain as I have a lot on there). Other photos in other files are there.

Picture package was the program that came with my camera to upload pictures. Shotwell does that for me on Ubuntu.

I did nothing that said or should have done anything with the external drive, to my knowledge.

Will testdisk do anything since it's not a wubi installation? It says I need to be a root user. How do I do that? Run it on the internal drive?? or the external, or both?

[halitech]

the best advice is to always disconnect any devices when installing a new OS.

testdisk isn't designed for wubi installs. I've thankfully never needed to use it myself but you should be able to select where you want it to scan.

if it's asking for root user, hit ALT-F2 and type in

gksudo testdisk

and that should run it as the superuser

[bluexrider]

testdisk with photorec is the only way to go. Run gksudo testdisk

here is the web site for instructions http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

[Guilden_NL]

I can vouch for photorec, it is excellent! I used it to recover 100% of 1GB of photos on a MMC card that my wife wiped out. It took a whopping 10 minutes total to install the app and recover the photos.

[Bucky Ball]

I'm figuring Linux just can't read Picture Package. Plug into a Windows machine and I bet they're still there. Copy them out of the Picture Package software and into a regular folder and things should work.

Don't think this is anything wrong with the hard drive and this is not a testdisk situation as everything else is there, including pictures in other, regular, folders that are'nt in the Picture Package folder.

Picture Package is probably a Win program from the camera manufacturer and not intended for Linux.

[Airycat]

I have a sneaky suspicion that when Ubuntu replaced everything on C including the Picture Package program, the program grabbed almost everything connected to it. The files did not show up on my laptop, but it doesn't have the PP program, so I still have a tiny bit of hope. I just have to find the program disk.

If those files were erased, it that what this program will recover?

I ran the Testdisk, but, although it ran (I had to choose "Log" -or not), I don't have a clue what it did . It opened a different window from the terminal window. Now, when I try to run it again it opens the Dashhome and shows results & history, asks for my password if I click on either and nothing happens. I did find the Log in the Home folder. This is it in full:

Mon Jan 30 22:58:30 2012
Command line: TestDisk

I think it's running again, now. It asked if I want to stop when I attempted to close it. It's in the terminal window this time, so maybe I'll get results.

A few hours later and this is what I'm getting. I'll leave it for the night, but it looks to me like nothing is happening.

I never got the screens in the Step by Step instructions.

[Airycat]

Testdisk did nothing useful. It didn't give me any way to input anything other than log. I did some searching and found scalpel and foremost. These run, but I don't know enough to tell them how to do what I want, so I get nothing... at least I don't know what it is. Are there instructions somewhere in non-tech English (I don't understand the tech instructions) that will tell me exactly what to type in to see if it can recover anything on my external drive?

tia
~Faith