I deleted my HDD partition while trying to install ubuntu 13.04. I installed windows 7 to get a recovery software (Phoenix recovery) I chose to recover after formatting but of course I didn't format it. I can't recover everything because when trying to recover certain pictures it crashes. I've tried other software and it still crashes.
I heard about being able to recover from Ubuntu but since I'm not a Linux expert I don't want to mess up and lose the files I've recovered. I have installed Ubuntu 13.04 on another Hard drive.
Best Answer
This is a tough spot, as you know. I can sympathize with you as I've hosed myself in similar situations like this before. You have some options. The good news is you will probably be able to recover most or all of your data. The bad news is it will take a bit of work.
The first thing I would try is TestDisk. It was made to help recover deleted partitions, so it may be the safest and easiest approach for you.
If that doesn't work, there are some good manual steps here. This is a bit involved but might save your data.
If it were me and TestDisk didn't work, I would download Helix 3 and try that with a Live CD. Helix 3 is a highly specialized Linux distro for forensics professionals. You can almost certainly recover your data from this, but it isn't the most user friendly. Since it's made for forensics professionals, you can tell it to basically ignore the partition table and look for any potential files/data structures on the disk. You'll be shocked at what you find that you didn't even know was there :-)
Don't give up. It will suck this time, but next time you'll be prepared and you can help others.