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I was running Ubuntu 16.04 in dual boot with Windows XP. I had it set up using a USB HDD so that at startup I was asked which OS I would use.
When Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS was released back in Aug. I upgraded.

Tried to resurrect a sad USB stick using the Disks facility on ubuntu & accidentally erased a partition on the Ext HDD. Now without access to ext HDD, I cannot boot either OS, also no longer have access to windows or the files stored on USB HDD.

Have installed ubuntu on the computer HDD just to try to get some help. Have tried recovery software e.g. Trinity Rescue Kit, Testdisk. No, go! Can anyone please help me get my system back to the way it was and especially get access to my files again?

Hi David, thanks for the info so far.

It's getting way too complex and as a newb I'm way confused now.

Would a simpler solution be for me to reinstall windows and Ubuntu using wubi or whatever? then just recover my data with a forensic program. Or can I recover my data first then re-install all.

My problem is that when I boot up with the ext HDD connected I get "No such partition. Grub rescue" but cannot get to boot menu or BIOS unless I disconnect Ext HDD.

I then reconnect Ext HDD then cannot get to chroot to try pointing Boot repair at /sdc??

TEMM
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  • As requested (http://paste.ubuntu.com/p/MFZ7JbVVqP/ – TEMM Oct 22 '18 at 08:17
  • It looks like there are two working Ubuntu installations in sda1 and sdc1 respectively. To be sure you can tell Boot-Repair (comes with Boot-Info) to reinstall Grub and set the BIOS to boot from the first drive (model ST31000524AS). Do you get a Grub menu with either or both Ubuntu installations listed? Can you boot them? Please [edit] your post when you want to clarify something or add information. It’s best to have everything relevant in one place. Additionally, comments may be deleted for various reasons. Thanks. – David Foerster Oct 22 '18 at 09:29

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please refer to this, if you can still see sda partitions there is hope, How do I point grub back to a working Ubuntu (btrfs !)

You can use any method available for you at the moment to see the partitions, fdisk, bootinfo etc. After you identify that you have the partitions you should proceed to mount and boot them with grub. Most is explained in the link.

If you have access to the grub> prompt you can do: ls see what is the output, normally "(hd0) (hd0,msdos2) (hd0,msdos1)", then follow after you recognize the right one do:

 set prefix=(hd0,1)*/boot/grub
    set root=(hd0,1)*
    insmod normal grub 
    normal 
    insmod linux grub
    linux /boot/*
    root=/dev/sda1* grub 
    initrd /boot/*
    boot
syncastra
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