I had Ubuntu on a partition with important files and I accidentally deleted the partition with Ubuntu and installed Windows on that partition.
I used disktest in live Ubuntu to get files from different partitions back but the one with Windows currently installed I had no luck. Should I uninstall Windows and then try to get files from the partition back that had Ubuntu installed?
Please help, these files are really important! The Windows installation is on the drive I need to return!
The data on an already overwritten partition is almost definitely lost. You can try data restoring software or a specialized service but the chance you ever get all the original data intact is low. (Note that there is no accepted answer to the possible duplicate questions found by karel.)
Should I uninstall the windows and then try to get files from the partition back that had Ubuntu installed?
You should avoid any write operations on the partition. There is nothing like uninstalling an OS, you would normally just overwrite it. However, this involves additional writes, so don’t proceed if you ever want to restore your data.
There is a much more reliable way to restore lost data, so I must ask you…
Do you have any backup of your data?
There are two groups of people: Those who backup and those who haven’t lost any data yet.
According to my experience, a self-experienced data loss is really the strongest argument for starting to backup. If you haven’t been a member of the first group yet, I hope to welcome you there very soon.
