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I ran testdisk in order to recover one partition out of two with some important files on it. Testdisk brought back the partition with three folders: "$RECYCLE.BIN", "saves" (this is what I was looking for) and "System Volume Information". Shortly, everything that partition had on it.

The problem: all folders appear as empty. The "saves" folder has 16,4kb which it can't be. Also, the partition's free space is 19,7GB out of 22GB. Obviously, the files are still there, taking space up, but not showing up.

P.S. I am seeing this using a live-usb. After using testdisk and rewriting the partition table I get "error: no such partition. Entering rescue mode..." I don't know about this either. Maybe because it is in front of the ubuntu partition.

Andrei Besleaga
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1 Answers1

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$RECYCLE.BIN is obviously a Windows Recycle Bin folder...that being empty would not be surprising, unless you typically store files in your trash can.

System Volume Information is also Windows cruft, storage for windows restore points. So that could contain plenty of hidden data.

As you were looking for this saves folder, the question is exactly what the storage requirements are for this folder in an objective fashion (as you do not trust what you are getting). If you KNOW the files are in the saves folder, and you don't have any problem with erasing these two 'empty' folders, I would delete them and reassess the situation as a first step.

rm -rf "$RECYCLE.BIN"
rm -rf "System Volume Information"
Aren
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    I am 100% sure that I have those files (photos and some documents) in that "saves" folder. I used the two comands and now the folders "$RECYCLE.BIN" and "System Volume Information" have files in them. But the terminal didn't say anything after the two comands. Should I use the same comands on the "saves" folder in the hope my files will show up, or should I proceed to delete the other two? What next? – Andrei Besleaga Dec 02 '15 at 22:38
  • Using a deletion command to make files spontaneously 'show up' is...well, it's like setting fire to a cardboard box and then turn around expecting it to have burnt away only to find a fresh apple sitting ontop of an unburnt cardboard box. Deleting the "$RECYCLE.BIN" and "System Volume Information" folders is safe as you are 100% sure your files are NOT in those folders (leaving you a partition with only your saves folder and your files in it), giving you an accurate view of how much room that takes up. – Aren Dec 02 '15 at 22:42
  • Deleting the saves folder is NOT recommended, as it would delete the files you are trying to save. – Aren Dec 02 '15 at 22:43
  • Well, I also found that very weird. How can one delete something and find myself with even more data than I had in the beginning? I am sure because I had that folder in windows also and I copied it from then on. It would be very weird for them to be in "$recycle.bin" or in "system volume information". BTW there are still 2.3GB taken up on the partition. Now my question is why is the terminal not showing me anything after I press enter. It just gives me a new line to tipe a new command. Is it because I'm in "try ubuntu without installing"? – Andrei Besleaga Dec 02 '15 at 22:50
  • No, an invocation of rm -rf foo will delete the file or folder named 'foo' in the current directory and give you a new prompt. The command is written so it won't display anything, it just does it's job. That you are deleting it and it's coming back with more data makes me wonder what is bringing it back. If you are running a Live USB session, there shouldn't be anything else 'restoring' deleted data....nothing else would be running. That makes me think hard drive failure, but I open this to the rest of the community. Can any of you explain what's going on here better than I have? – Aren Dec 02 '15 at 23:05
  • I'm back with great news!! I reinstalled ubuntu because I ruined the boot after re-writing the partition table. During installation I joined that 20gb partition in the other one that also didn't show up. This one was a 930gb partition. This partition was my data partition from windows (it also contained that "saves" folder and even more files that I was looking for. I used testdisk again but this time I didn't re-write the partition table. This time I just entered the partition (amazing thing this) and located my files and just copied them and voila! I now have my files <3. – Andrei Besleaga Dec 03 '15 at 15:43
  • Thank you so much for your help and understanding of my newbness! Others can follow my steps in order to recover lost data, by locating them on the partition in question and just copy them out of there on another partition, pen-drive, etc. No need to rewrite partition tables, MBR, bring back partitions, etc, if not needed. Cheers! – Andrei Besleaga Dec 03 '15 at 15:50