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I was trying to make a bootable USB drive, and was facing some problems in formatting it. I was following the instructions in this answer, and by accident I made a new partition table on the hard drive itself. Now after rebooting I got this black screen with No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key.

Here is an image of the screen:

enter image description here

I'm not sure if I did the third step and erased all the data on the HDD or just made a new partition table.

Is there any way to get everything on my HDD back?

Edit:

I opened gparted through a live session, and it didn't detect the HDD at all. It looks like this:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/qwvNs.jpg

Can anybody please help me by explaining the steps I should do to me??

Nuhania
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    Possible duplicate of Accidentally formatted ext4 partition – karel May 12 '18 at 12:14
  • Is it possible to recover data without plugging-in the HDD in another computer ?? – Nuhania May 12 '18 at 17:58
  • You'll be working from an Ubuntu live USB in "Try Ubuntu without installing mode" so it doesn't write anything to your hard drive. Clearly you don't want to write anything to the hard drive that has the data to be recovered because that would interfere with being able to recover the data from it. The Ubuntu live USB needs to be persistent in order for you to be able to install testdisk on it. And finally you might need a device to store the recovered data, typically an external hard drive, although maybe not if you can fix the partition without needing to copy paste all the data that is in it. – karel May 13 '18 at 08:02
  • @karel If I made the usb persistent, can I format it and reuse it again as a normal storage device later or not? – Nuhania May 13 '18 at 08:17
  • Another problem that I'm facing is that I don't have internet access in my other laptop to install testdisk , as it has a grub problem and I use the live usb to open it. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1035333/ubuntu-18-04-new-installation-over-erased-16-04-failure – Nuhania May 13 '18 at 08:23
  • You need to find a way to download testdisk either manually from Ubuntu Packages Search or from the live USB, at an internet cafe, a public library, somewhere where there is free wifi. That should be the first problem that you solve in order to get it out of the way so you won't feel stressed because everything doesn't work. – karel May 13 '18 at 08:37
  • The problem is in Ubuntu 18.04 installation on my laptop not in my home network https://askubuntu.com/questions/1035333/ubuntu-18-04-new-installation-over-erased-16-04-failure – Nuhania May 13 '18 at 08:42
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Nuhania May 13 '18 at 08:43

1 Answers1

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If you want to recover the data (I mean, if you have something very important), first, do not attempt to re-format or reinstall, if you only formatted you can try to recover pluggin-in the HDD in another computer and running Recuva. But if you created a new partition table, it will be hard to recover.

Don´t expect to recover the entire system, focus on recovering the important files. Probably (the most) you will have to reinstall ubuntu again.

You can try this proccedure: https://askubuntu.com/a/537143/829050

l3xium
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  • So in all cases the HDD was erased completely and I need to recover any data that I could ? I'm not sure if I did the 3rd step and erased all the data on the HDD or just made a new table. And excuse my ignorance . – Nuhania May 12 '18 at 12:26
  • Why shouldn't Nuhunia expect to recover the entire operating system? It appears that the link at the end of this answer was copied from my comment below the question 6 minutes after I posted it. If you read the accepted answer to the linked question, you will find that a complete recovery is possible using this method. Also read this blog post: Recovering Accidentally Formatted ext4 Partition / Fixing Superblock – karel May 12 '18 at 12:27
  • Be careful, read the steps in the accepted answer several times, and make sure that you understand them thoroughly. You only have one chance to get this right. – karel May 12 '18 at 12:33
  • Please excuse me for my ignorance but i'm not very experienced with Linux and I need some detailed instructions form guys who understand, that's why i'm asking for your help. My situation now is that when I power on the laptop it gives me a message that no bootable device is detected and I have to connect one. – Nuhania May 12 '18 at 12:35
  • I added an image of the screen in the question above. – Nuhania May 12 '18 at 12:48
  • Sorry karel, I keep the webpage opened for 15 minutes, and it seems that you writed a comment in that time. – l3xium May 12 '18 at 14:01
  • Althought, karel, of course a complete recovery is possible, but it seems than Nuhania is not an expert (sorry :) ) so I don´t use to recommend fdisk or fsck to unexperienced people, cause they can do more damage, that´s the reason I wrote "focus on recovering the important files". But if she/he wants to try, no problem by my side. – l3xium May 12 '18 at 14:10
  • I am not an expert yes, but I know a little bit and can follow the instructions without problems most of the time. I just need some one to explain and guide me in this process and I can try. – Nuhania May 12 '18 at 14:30
  • Can I use a live USB to use gparted and see the HDD status? – Nuhania May 13 '18 at 05:25
  • Yes, I don´t see why not. – l3xium May 16 '18 at 22:39
  • Sorry if I offended you, Nuhania, it wasn´t my intention. – l3xium May 16 '18 at 22:40