After the installation of the latest Ubuntu 14, the old files are missing

[Gins]

Hi Friends

I had the latest Ubuntu 14 desktop version.
There was a small problem.
So I reinstalled it. I have it on a DVD.
During the reinstallation, it told me that there will not be a problem with my existing documents.
I accepted it and went ahead with installation of the Ubuntu 14.

By the way, during the installation there was not formatting of the hard drive.

I have some important letters on the Libre wordprocessor.
Now I can't see those letters.
I opened the wordprocessor. It seems the installation has installed a clean new program.
I badly need those documents.

How can I retrieve those documents?

The same problem exsists with Firefox browser and Google Chrome browser.
The bookmarks are not there. How can I retrieve them?

I profoundly appreciate your advice on this matter.

[fantab]

You can try Testdisk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk) and Photorec (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec) to find your lost files.

It seems all your config files too got overwritten by the new install. This is one disadvantage if your don't have a separate /home partition.
Haven't you synced your firefox and chrome profiles? You must always... it keeps your browser bookmarks and other settings safe.
I use xmarks firefox/chrome extension to keep my bookmarks synced across all my devices...

[ajgreeny]

Let's start at the start.



Do you have a separate /home partition or just a home folder within the root partition?
Do you have any backups?
Are you still using the same username on the new installation?
Did you overwrite the old partitions or make new ones when you installed?


More info is needed before it is possible to tell exactly what happened, but show us the output of
sudo fdisk -lor if this is a UEFI system use
sudo parted -land also
df -hto show disk usage.

You could also use the find command if you know the exact name of one of your missing files with
find -name filenameeven using wildcards such as * if you remember only part of the name.

[Gins]

Thanks for the excellent replies.

I use the same username for the new installation.

I allowed the installation to overwrite the old partition.

I didn't allow to format; because it will erase everything.


I have Ubuntu on 'sda1' partition.

So when I start the computer, Ubuntu comes to the screen.

I have Fedora Linux on 'sda5'. It works fine.

All the other partitions are empty. I will install other Linux programs like SuSE, when time permits.

I had a problem. It was Ubuntu didn't come to the screen.

So I reinstalled it on the belief it would fix the problem.

Now I think the problem lies in the graphic card. I will buy a new graphic card next week.

Today, I don't have money to buy hardware.

I appreciate all your comments.

…................................................. ...................

[ I had a file under the name ' French124.odt '. ]

nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$ find -name French124.odt
nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$

As you can see, the 'find' command did not find it.
I doubt very much whether the command 'find' is able to find files written using the 'Libre' wordprocessor program.
As far as I understand, it will find '*txt' files.



nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for nissanka:

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003928d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 157290495 78644224 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 157292476 976771071 409739298 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 157292478 314584829 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 314584893 471877244 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 471877308 629169659 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 629169723 786462074 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 956772352 976771071 9999360 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda10 786462720 956766207 85151744 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order


nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$ sudo parted -l
Model: ATA MAXTOR STM350032 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 80,5GB 80,5GB primary ext4 boot
2 80,5GB 500GB 420GB extended
5 80,5GB 161GB 80,5GB logical ext4
6 161GB 242GB 80,5GB logical ext2
7 242GB 322GB 80,5GB logical ext2
8 322GB 403GB 80,5GB logical ext2
10 403GB 490GB 87,2GB logical ext4
9 490GB 500GB 10,2GB logical linux-swap(v1)




nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 74G 4,0G 66G 6% /
none 4,0K 0 4,0K 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
udev 2,0G 4,0K 2,0G 1% /dev
tmpfs 396M 1,2M 394M 1% /run
none 5,0M 0 5,0M 0% /run/lock
none 2,0G 156K 2,0G 1% /run/shm
none 100M 36K 100M 1% /run/user
nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The testdisk program created a file under the name 'testdisk-7.0-WIP' .
I don't know how to use the file.
The original file was 'linux26.tar.bz2'.
The 'k3b' program is installed.
So I can copy it onto a CD.
Please let me know how to go ahead with the file.

[ajgreeny]

Sorry I can not help with testdisk as I have never used it and have no experience of its use by anyone else.

If the file was present on disk the find command would have found it with no problem; it does not work on .txt files only but will find anything as long as you get the name correct or use appropriate wildcards. If you're not sure of the case of the filename use -iname instead of -name in the options.
See my examples below

user@Xubuntu:~$ find -name Choc-Rasp-Torte*
./Documents/Choc-Rasp-Torte.odt
./Quicknotes/Choc-Rasp-Torte.txt
user@Xubuntu:~$ find -iname choc-rasp-torte*
./Documents/Choc-Rasp-Torte.odt
./Quicknotes/Choc-Rasp-Torte.txt
user@Xubuntu:~$ find -iname *oc-*sp-*rte*
./Documents/Choc-Rasp-Torte.odt
./Quicknotes/Choc-Rasp-Torte.txt

[Gins]

Thanks ajgreeny for the help.

As you see, it did not find.
I appreciate all your help.
So please tell me all the other available avenues to get my files back.

nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$ find -iname French124
nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$

[ajgreeny]

Are you sure the French124 file did not have a file suffix of some sort, eg .txt or .doc etc etc?

Just to be sure try
find -iname French124*
If that doesn't work I can not really help more as I honestly don't know how to recover deleted files.

You have a lot of partitions with Linux filesystems on your disk; do you know what they all are?

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 157290495 78644224 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 157292476 976771071 409739298 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 157292478 314584829 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 314584893 471877244 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 471877308 629169659 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 629169723 786462074 78646176 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 956772352 976771071 9999360 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda10 786462720 956766207 85151744 83 Linux
It is possible that the missing files could be on one of those partitions which are no longer mounted at boot as you have a newly written /etc/fstab file.

[Gins]

Thanks ajgreeny

nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$ find -iname French124*
nissanka@nissanka-desktop:~$

No, it did not find.
I hope to install other Linux flavours on other partitions.
I hope I will find time for it.

Ubuntu is on 'sda1' partition.
Fedora is on 'sda5' partition.