Data Recovery in Hidden drive

Question

I installed ubuntu 14.04 using a bootable usb in my system running windows 7. But i forgot to backup my data from the drive in which i installed ubuntu. How can recovery the data stored in the ubuntu partition. The ubuntu partition is not shown in windows and cannot be reinitialized using disk manager.

possible duplicate of How do I recover my accidentally lost Windows partitions after installing Ubuntu? - testdisk is quite useful in recovering single files or directories (this is much safer than trying to restore partition). — Takkat, Sep 28 '14 at 17:01

Faron · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-28T14:50:32.220

0

At many times, I have accidentally deleted so so so so important files and testdisk is what saved my life.

sudo apt-get install -y testdisk
sudo reboot

And while you reboot, at your GRUB screen, pick to boot system in recovery mode. It'll take you to the menu, where you would have option to drop into root shell.

When you are at the cmd line, fire this testdisk /dev/sda and follow the instruction in that process.

Good luck

EDITED: Updated as per comment. { thanks! :) }

edited Sep 28 '14 at 14:50

answered Sep 28 '14 at 14:14

Faron

1,398
10
14

You do not need build-dep as you are not installing from source. This only works if the data has not been over written. See also https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery The reason I mention this is that continuing to run Ubuntu continues to increase the chance of data loss, and installing software only makes it worse. Data recovery should be done from a live usb – Panther Sep 28 '14 at 14:43
That's right - that's important point that must be pointed out. Mounting in read-mode is the best bet. Thank you @bodhi.zazen – Faron Sep 28 '14 at 14:51
What I did was - I pulled the hard drive out and mount it as external drive and ran it as read-only mode on my other computer. Read-only is what prevent from any further loss. – Faron Sep 28 '14 at 15:26

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

Important: Stop using the drive NOW

If I understand correctly, you've already overwritten a part of the drive.

If you depend on the data (financially or otherwise), take the drive to a recovery specialist, even if it'll cost you a small fortune.

Your other option is to try it yourself. Chances are high that your data is already - at least partially - lost, but perhaps you can get by using this solution.

It all depends on the importance of the data.

Data Recovery in Hidden drive

2 Answers2

Important: Stop using the drive NOW