Can I recover this system?

[valkyrie]

I have had Windows Vista and Ubuntu cheerfully running on the same laptop for months. Today, I was booting, and ended up hitting something besides "enter" in Grub -- I think it ended up going into Vista recovery, and the next thing I know it gives me a Windows background, and then (in big red letters) "ERROR".

Upon reboot, grub didn't give a list of boot options, it gave Error 22. However, the process described in http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=224351 for restoring grub isn't working; "find /boot/grub/stage1" just returns an error, regardless of which /dev/sda# is mounted. I also walked through https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecoveringUbuntuAfterInstallingWindows?action=show&redirect=RecoveringGrub to find out which sda# exactly I should be working with, and can't find any linux-like files on any of the partitions.

Currently, fdisk -l returns the following:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x97646c29

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1530 12289693+ 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2 * 1531 14555 104616444 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 14556 38913 195655635 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 20987 38913 143998596 7 HPFS/NTFS


I am worried that whatever restore-Vista-process I accidentally started has simply wiped the Linux partitions; however, it wasn't running very long (a few minutes, not nearly enough time to format 160+ GB) and so I am hopeful that it's a matter of restoring partitions instead. However, I don't really want to play in the partitioner in case I accidentally end up formatting the former Linux partition -- I could really, really use some data that is (was?) on there.

Your advice is appreciated :)

[earthpigg]

hi,

before attempting to restore partitions and whatnot, you should first recover whatever vital data you had that was not backed up using testdisk.

from the live cd:

sudo apt-get install testdisk

then peruse the photorec and testdisk wikis:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

once you are ready, go ahead and use photorec to recover your vital stuff (dont let the name fool you, photorec isn't just for pictures...):


sudo photorec


as for windows and ubuntu fighting over your MBR, im afraid i cannot be of help as i don't use windows.

[valkyrie]

My main priority is getting the data. If I can do that (and certainly looks like I can, thank you for that!), then I can go ahead and reinstall Ubuntu after that. Thank you!!!