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I just wanted to start by noting that I don't know much about computers or programming so any help would be very much appreciated.

I am a mac user -- but just a user-- and decided to install Ubuntu on my 1TB external hard drive because I thought it would be fun to explore what it has to offer. Before I installed it, I partitioned the external drive into 3 parts, using the disk utility, making sure all my files were safe on one part (500GB) and it had two other completely empty 250GB parts.

Then I followed the instructions on Ubuntu website, successfully installed Ubuntu and booted it from the external hard drive. Ubuntu works perfectly fine and all that.

So far so good? Well, not really because now I don't have access to my files on the hard drive. When I plug the hard drive on my laptop it says "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with "initialize", "ignore" and "eject" being the only three options.

So, here are the questions? Did I do something completely stupid and manage to lose all my files? If yes, what can I do to recover them? If by any chance I haven't deleted them by mistake, where are they and how can I access them?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks, fb.

abu_bua
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F.B.
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  • I hope you chose one of the empty partitions to install Ubuntu and not the whole drive. If you did things correctly, you can access your files from Ubuntu using a file browser. If you installed in your files partition, check this https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery – Katu Sep 18 '18 at 09:18
  • Thanks a lot for getting back to me. I am afraid I dont have an answer to your question. I simply followed the steps, first installed Etcher and followed the steps. It didn't have an option to chose any of the partitions. – F.B. Sep 18 '18 at 09:27

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Etcher creates a live USB image, not an installation of Ubuntu. If that is what you did, you have probably deleted all the partitions and now you have a hard drive that can run Ubuntu Live and it can install it into a different hard drive. Difference between LiveCD, LiveUSB, full-install, and persistence?

First, check that this is the case booting Ubuntu from your hard drive and checking the partitions in gparted. If your hard drive doesn't have the partitions you created any more, that is the problem. You will have to try to recover the data using the tools in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

Use a different USB to install Ubuntu Live. You can use Etcher but I don't think it will give you the option to make it persistent. Unetbootin does. With this new USB, boot Ubuntu, install testdisk, connect your 1Tb hard drive and use testdisk for the recovery. Don't start booting Ubuntu from your 1Tb drive and installing things because every new data that it writes in that hard drive will potentially overwrite your lost files.

I have had best results with testdisk. Maybe if you restore your three partitions that you created, you will get most of your data back. The live image will have overwritten less than 4Gb. If that doesn't work, try a deeper search for files using testdisk and see what you are capable of recovering.

Katu
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  • thanks alot for your detailed explanation. I think it is exactly what happened and I have the Ubuntu Live. When I ran it for the first time there was an Ubuntu installation shortcut on the desktop which did not make sense to me as I thought I had already installed it. So I decided not to install it. And also because when I ran Ubuntu on the hard drive and tried to see the contents of the hard drive (nothing special though, just by clicking what was is already available on Ubuntu Live). So I will have to follow your steps and hope for the best result from the data recovery procedure. – F.B. Sep 18 '18 at 11:24
  • Good luck with the data recovery and welcome to askubuntu. I you find an answer helpful, consider upvoting it and/or marking it as a valid answer to your question. – Katu Sep 18 '18 at 12:32
  • Will definitely do thanks a lot. But here are a couple of additional questions, – F.B. Sep 18 '18 at 12:36
  • Will definitely do, thanks a lot. But here are a few more questions. Lets assume that I was able to install Ubuntu Live on another Usb and then boot it and download the testdisk software, then I guess I mount the 1TB hard drive and Testdisk automatically recognizes it? And lets assume it did, where does it recover the files to? Is there a detailed step by step guide for using testdisk for completely programming-illiterate users like myself? – F.B. Sep 18 '18 at 12:43
  • Testdisk is a well known tool. You will be able to find information on out to use it. If you get stuck, you can post a new question (check that your question hasn't been asked yet). In Askubuntu is adviced to keep one question only per post and we don't answer different questions posted in comments. https://askubuntu.com/help/how-to-ask – Katu Sep 18 '18 at 13:15