Retrieve files of Old OS

**adityaharish** · May 27th, 2013

I have installed Ubuntu 12.04 over another version of Ubuntu i.e I have two ubuntu Os's with same version number.

Now, I can only login into the new version, I cannot see the old version . This is what I get when I run

sudo fdisk -l

The Output is :

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 577941500 288969726+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 577941502 976771071 199414785 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 968568832 976771071 4101120 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 577941504 968568831 195313664 83 Linux

So, Please help me in retreiving the files of my old OS .
I think /dev/sda1 is my old one & /dev/sda6 is my new one.

**sudodus** · May 27th, 2013

You are probably right, but if you mount all partitions that you can mount and run

Code:

df

and post the output within code tags
like this

[code]output[/code]

to get output like this

Code:

output

it will be easier to read (columns will remain as columns) and be sure your data is there.

-o-

Normally you can mount a partition with the file browser. Just click on its icon in the left panel. Anyway, after mounting the files and directories should be available for reading, copying, backup ...

**adityaharish** · May 28th, 2013

The command is
code :
df

The Output is :
Code :
shraddesh@shraddesh-Samsung-Desktop-System:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 284435028 3897312 266089232 2% /
udev 2007612 4 2007608 1% /dev
tmpfs 805968 796 805172 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 2014912 80 2014832 1% /run/shm
/dev/sda1 284435028 3897312 266089232 2% /media/home
/dev/sda6 192247388 2460520 180021188 2% /home
shraddesh@shraddesh-Samsung-Desktop-System:~$

**deadflowr** · May 28th, 2013

You only have one Operating System.

/dev/sda1 is the OS
/dev/sda2 is an extended partition. It holds the logical partition which are
/dev/sda5 is your swap partition
/dev/sda6 is your home partition.

So it's no wonder you can't boot a different system.

If you had files on the old, which is /dev/sda1 then they might be gone forever.
It really depends on how you install the new system.
Give us a run down of how you installed the second time.

**sudodus** · May 28th, 2013

Originally Posted by deadflowr

You only have one Operating System.

/dev/sda1 is the OS
/dev/sda2 is an extended partition. It holds the logical partition which are
/dev/sda5 is your swap partition
/dev/sda6 is your home partition.

So it's no wonder you can't boot a different system.

If you had files on the old, which is /dev/sda1 then they might be gone forever.
It really depends on how you install the new system.
Give us a run down of how you installed the second time.

+1

I agree with the analysis of deadflowr. The old files might be gone forever. It depends on how you installed the second time.

If you formatted /dev/sda1 and/or /dev/sda6, everything is gone. Otherwise many files are overwritten, but those old files with unique names should stay. So there is a chance that your private files, documents, pictures etc might be possible to find the normal way with the file browser.

-o-

If there are some very valuable files, that were not backed up, you can look for them with PhotoRec, that can find files from the data on the disk, without any directory or file name. But it means a lot of work.