I normally dual-boot with 12.04 and Win XP pro sp3 on a Thinkpad R60. I needed to reinstall windows because of problems piling up, so I ran the computer's built-in hard-disk recovery software. I told it not to mess with the other partitions, but somehow it deleted the Linux partition. That's what I was using to backup all of my windows files, so now everything I have is gone. I just ran the USB setup with linux, and the partition is deleted – it just shows it as empty space.
Is there ANY way to get all of my files back?
Best Answer
I would recommend Recovery using TestDisk.
Boot Ubuntu from Live USB drive or CD, , run
TestDisk is used to recover missing partitions and repair a corrupted one. It served me well in recent past to recover entire Hard disk , so i am suggesting it.
After installing ,open Terminal and run
sudo testdisk
to get thisSelect the
create
to create new log file ,select the Hard disk you want to recover ,Proceed
upon selecting the DiskThen select the
Intel
option ,Enter
to proceed further.Analyse
to search for Lost PartitionThen it will list the Current Partition Structure , select the
Quick search
option to list theDeleted partition
.If Found Nothing then select the
Deeper search
option to list the deleted partitions. It will probably list all the partitions created since the Disk was First used. You have to be extremely careful here.For more in-depth instructions refer this Step-By-Step guide .If found proper listing of partitions , select the
Write
option and Reboot to see the changes. Best of Luck .Also refer below options before trying this above , here
How to recover deleted files?
Mitch's answer here for RAW data recovery
Ubuntu help page on Data Recovery