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Thread: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
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    3

    Red face silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    I was doing a reinstall of ubuntu the other day when the cat jumped on my lap. Unfortunately, I was right on the screen where one selects the drive/partition to install the OS. In the process of removing the cat from my keyboard, the two of us inadvertently managed to hit the "install" button while the wrong drive was showing in the selection box. Regrettably, the installation started on my main backup drive instead of the place I wanted it to go. The installation only ran for about 10 - 15 seconds but that was enough to delete the partition on the backup drive. Now, of course, there's no access to the files which is not a good thing as the "backup" drive actually contained a bunch of files not on any other of my drives.

    So - here's the setup. I have a single box with two hard drives. Windows 7 and 8 are installed on the first drive and Ubuntu is installed on the second drive. The "backup" drive is a usb/external Seagate which was formatted in NTSF and could be accessed from both the Windows and Ubuntu sides. Since I've lost the main partition, Windows no longer recognizes the drive so I can't do a data recovery from the Windows side of things. Ubuntu sees the drive and can access it but it does't see any of the files that were (are) on the drive.

    Now - after that long winded explanation of my stupidity (I am blaming the cat) I'd like to know what packages folks recommend to do a data recovery operation from Ubuntu. I've got a couple of the forensic OS packages (Caine and Backtrace) but they are a pain in the back end. Is there something that simpilier to use?

    All suggestions are welcome.

    The cat is not allowed on the desk for the night.

    Cheers and thanks,
    jwferk1

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Beans
    104
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    I've had some success with PhotoRec before. If you're on Ubuntu you can open a terminal and type:

    Code:
    sudo apt-get install testdisk
    to download it and then

    Code:
    sudo photorec
    to start it. It runs in the terminal and has a relatively friendly interface (you don't need to learn a ton of commands). Here's the page I used to learn about it, still got it bookmarked.

    It was the first program I ever had to use for data recovery and I found it pretty easy to use, though I wasn't able to recover the one program I was after (I think it was too big).

    EDIT: The article is about a couple different methods of data recovery. You'll want to look at the sections on testdisk/photorec only.
    Last edited by Dylan1473; July 27th, 2012 at 02:48 AM. Reason: Clarification about link

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    The Great Ocean
    Beans
    Hidden!
    Distro
    Lubuntu

    Re: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    i've used getdataback, and photorec. getdataback is about 1000x times better.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    India
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    Hidden!

    Re: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    read this for more information
    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery/
    Dont miss anything even it is small. one small pin is enough to bring down a man.


  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Beans
    3

    Re: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    Thanks folks - appreciate the suggestions. Will let everyone know how it comes out later tonight.

    Cheers

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    San Diego, California
    Beans
    186
    Distro
    Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

    Re: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    They neglected to mention step #1.

    Always, ALWAYS dd the drive/partition first! Then do all the recovery operations (testdisk, etc.) on the COPY. Else, you risk screwing up the data more, or accidentally wiping parts of it.
    "I'd group the Gnome 3s, the KDE4s, the Unitys and the win8s with the same tag "Attempted to fix problems that didn't exist by breaking stuff that worked". - vexorian
    On another note, it looks like I'm back to ATI.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Beans
    3

    Re: silly me - need suggestions for data recovery

    Quote Originally Posted by Nixarter View Post
    They neglected to mention step #1.

    Always, ALWAYS dd the drive/partition first! Then do all the recovery operations (testdisk, etc.) on the COPY. Else, you risk screwing up the data more, or accidentally wiping parts of it.
    Nixarter et al.

    Thanks again. I used gddrescue to make a .dd file of the hard disk first before I did anything else.

    At the end of the day I used "testdisk." It turned out to be much easier than I had anticipated. The entire (1TB) disk was a single ext4 partition. I was able to use testdisk to exchange that to an NTSF file system and then have testdisk insert a new MBR. Bingo, all files are now accessible and readable on both Win and Ubu.

    Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.

    The cat is now sleeping on her pillow on the desk.

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