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I am new to ubuntu. While installing, ubuntu from a USB I selected to remove win 7 and install ubuntu, option. Now, none of my C:\, D:\ and E:\ drives are visible. I expected that ubuntu will be installed on C:\ drive whereas when i checked all drives have been converted into one big drive beside two small drives one is 'swap' and other is 'ext4'. Now, i am going crazy since i had alot of very important data on D and E drives. Is there a method to recover the complete data on both the drives? and if not complete at least partial recovery? will be very very obliged for help and guidance on this issue

Dani z
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    duplicate: http://askubuntu.com/questions/286181/how-do-i-recover-my-accidentally-lost-windows-partitions-after-installing-ubuntu Do be more careful next time, and keep a backup. – mikewhatever Jan 10 '15 at 20:01
  • No you did not have a lot of very important data on your system, otherwise you would have made a backup – Fabby Feb 13 '15 at 12:37

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It's most likely that you failed to read the instructions, and have destroyed the partitions and formatting of your previously existing volumes, effectively erasing the entire hard disk and all its contents.

If that's the case, the only possible chance of recovering any data that was stored in those volumes is "forensic file recovery" software; given your track record, probably best used by a professional (or at least someone with experience). Paying for data recovery will likely cost between $100 and $200 (early 2015) for the attempt with no guarantee of recovering anything, and odds are good that a computer store asked to perform this task will take your money and fail completely. A data recovery specialist, on the other hand, has pretty decent odds of recovering at least some of the data from the old volumes, but may charge several times the above figures and still won't guarantee results -- and the attempt is likely to take a week or more regardless of results.

There's a slight possibility (depending on the options you selected during installation) that Ubuntu installed in unallocated space or shrank a partition to make free space for itself; seeing only a single "ext4" volume would be what's expected for that, and Ubuntu can install in a rather small workspace (I have Kubuntu running in a 20 GB partition with separate data volume, and a couple other machines with other Linux distros running in as little as 12 GB for OS, programs, and user data). I'd recommend getting someone local to you with experience on Linux of some flavor to evaluate your system before you attempt to do anything else with it.

Zeiss Ikon
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While installing, ubuntu from a USB I selected to remove win 7 and install ubuntu, option.

That will remove ALL traces of Windows. Be it C:, D: or any other letter.

Now, none of my C:\, D:\ and E:\ drives are visible. I expected that ubuntu will be installed on C:\ drive whereas when i checked all drives have been converted into one big drive beside two small drives one is 'swap' and other is 'ext4'.

Nope. If you wanted that you should have used the "manual" install and remove the partition that equals the Windows C:.

Now, i am going crazy since i had alot of very important data on D and E drives.

Next time please make a backup before messing with your system. Or disconnect the hard drive that holds D: and E: if it is a separate disk.

Is there a method to recover the complete data on both the drives? and if not complete at least partial recovery? will be very very obliged for help and guidance on this issue

IF you did NOTHING ELSE then format the disk you can try "testdisk". Important thing is to do NOTHING with those partitions and use a LIVE DVD for "testdisk". Some help on that:

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Rinzwind
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